Category Archives: Gun Control

Overheard at the barbershop

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A blogger friend frequently leads his posts with, “Heard in the ‘bolance…” I’m emulating him today about a discussion I had with my barber last week.

My barber is the current owner, of a string of owners, of the barbershop where I’ve been getting my hair cut for a long time, several decades, since I got out of the Air Force. My barber started as just another hair-cutter. She saved her money and when the last owner retired, she bought the shop. In the time I’ve known her, she’s raised a family and now has grandchildren.

I’m not sure how we approached the subject. Somewhere in our conversation she said she and twenty of her ‘girlfriends’ were taking CCW training the following day. She made the statement, “Getting one while she could.”

It was a strange statement, I thought. There is no movement in Missouri to abolish concealed carry. Nation-wide, the trend is just the opposite. Even Illinois, the last holdout, now has concealed carry. The first 5,000 certificates were mailed out this week.

Heller and McDonald ended any idea that the 2nd Amendment applied only to militias, or the National Guard, according to rabid liberals. The May-issue vs. Shall-issue controversy received a probable fatal blow this week when the 9th Circus, uhh, the 9th US Appellate Court, declared ‘May Issue’, in light of Heller and McDonald, was a denial of 2nd Amendment rights. The first case was against the San Diego Sheriff. That decision was echoed in a second case against another Sheriff.

Because of these court actions, I was surprised to hear my barber be so pessimistic about concealed carry and ownership of firearms in general. She, like all too many, is not a follower of 2nd Amendment news. In fact, she’s not a follower of the news in any form. She acquires bits and snips of information, frequently invalid information, from the internet and friends.

What she is, however, is a fair barometer of state of mind of American citizens at large. And that barometer foretells a storm season. I hadn’t told her that I was carrying concealed. There had been, until that time, no need. The conversation proceeded about how she planned to stash a pistol in her barbershop. She mentioned velcroing a holster to the back of her barber chair. I suggested that a pistol hidden in the shop would defeat its purpose if she was not at that spot when a need occurred. What would she do, I asked, if she needed that pistol and she was not at her chair but on a smoke break in the rear of the shop or sitting, reading during a slack period several feet away from her hidden pistol? I suggested she carry on her person instead. Her barber smock provided perfect concealment of a pistol in or outside of her waistband.

The entire conversation was an indication that normal, run-of-the-mill citizens are fearful, worried, not about crime so much as deeply concerned about the course of government. When I mentioned the confiscation threats being issued by the Connecticut and New York state governments, it was completely new to her. She was surprised, dismayed, and…enraged!

As I said, she was not a follower of the news. She was a typical representation of the vast majority of citizens living their lives, mindful of the growing governmental interference, who simply want to live life as they have been. But everyday, in some way, that vision of life is being changed, and not, in their view, for the better.

You see satirical articles, such as the one below, every day, it seems. This article used to be an inside joke—inside to those who are 2nd Amendment supporters. But it is new to some like my barber. To them, it isn’t satire aimed at over-reaching government; it is a strong possibility that is not fantasy nor satire.

The police panic in Boston last year following the Boston Marathon bombing is still fresh in people’s mind. (If you have a Facebook account, you can see a gallery of photos of illegal police actions.) The scenes of police invading homes without warrants could happen anywhere government becomes oppressive.

72 People Killed Resisting Gun Confiscation in Massachussetts!

Posted by Staff on March 09, 2014

Boston – National Guard units seeking to confiscate a cache of recently banned assault weapons were ambushed by elements of a Para-military extremist faction. Military and law enforcement sources estimate that 72 were killed and more than 200 injured before government forces were compelled to withdraw.

 

Speaking after the clash, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Gage declared that the extremist faction, which was made up of local citizens, has links to the radical right-wing tax protest movement.

Gage blamed the extremists for recent incidents of vandalism directed against internal revenue offices. The governor, who described the group’s organizers as “criminals,” issued an executive order authorizing the summary arrest of any individual who has interfered with the government’s efforts to secure law and order.

The military raid on the extremist arsenal followed wide-spread refusal by the local citizenry to turn over recently outlawed assault weapons.

Gage issued a ban on military-style assault weapons and ammunition earlier in the week. This decision followed a meeting in early this month between government and military leaders at which the governor authorized the forcible confiscation of illegal arms.

One government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, pointed out that “none of these people would have been killed had the extremists obeyed the law and turned over their weapons voluntarily.”

Government troops initially succeeded in confiscating a large supply of outlawed weapons and ammunition. However, troops attempting to seize arms and ammunition in Lexington met with resistance from heavily-armed extremists who had been tipped off regarding the government’s plans.

Of course, the article is satire, an updated version of the Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. To people like my barber, it brings a troubling possibility home. New York and Connecticut have already threatened their citizens that police break in their homes and seize so-called ‘assault’ weapons and ‘large-capacity’ magazines. Shotguns, too, in the case of New York. To a growing number of Americans, that threat is no longer a fantasy and certainly not satire.

While she finished my haircut, we had a nice conversation on the merits of auto-loading pistols versus revolvers. I think she will begin with a revolver…at first. Like all so many things, once you’ve bought your first firearm, you just can’t stop at one.

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Told ya so

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I’ve often written about the unintended consequences from the acts of governments. Today, we have a story about an INTENDED act of government—specifically, gun confiscation by the state government of Connecticut.

http://bearingarms.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/ct-cowards1-e1388498403839.pngOn February 17, I wrote about an open letter to the members of the Connecticut State police. In that letter, the members were warned about the possible consequences if they follow orders to confiscate firearms from Connecticut citizens who were suddenly made potential felons by a government gone mad.

That story isn’t over.

Connecticut to gun owners: hey, did you *try* to register? …SUCKERS!

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  February 27th, 2014 at 09:30 AM

Well, isn’t this just a fine how-do-you-do:

After tens of thousands of defiant gun owners in Connecticut chose not to register their semi-automatic rifles to comply with a hastily-passed gun control law, the state is now taking some action. Officials are reportedly notifying gun owners who submitted late applications that they have one last chance to get rid of their “illegal” weapons.

State officials did accept some gun registration applications that were submitted after the Jan. 4 deadline, however, not all late applications were accepted, the Journal Inquirer reports.

“But rather than turn that information over to prosecutors, state officials are giving the gun owners a chance to get rid of the weapons and magazines,” the report adds.

And completely expected, too. But it gets better! You see, these are the people that tried and failed to register their firearms… and it’s absolutely dwarfed by the people who refused to tell the state of Connecticut about their newly-illegal firearms. You know what will happen to those people? That’s right: probably nothing at all.  Those people vote, and they’ll still have those votes in November unless the state of Connecticut has suddenly developed a way to arrest, detain, and felony convict en masse several hundred thousand people.

Moral of the story?  God help you if you try and fail to comply with the State.  You’re better off by far if you just keep your mouth shut.

Like I said, intended consequences. They allowed these folks to ‘register’ their weapons late and then disapproved the application to create an excuse to confiscate them. Sounds like King George III, next door in Massachusetts in April, 1775, doesn’t it?

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I’ve talked from time to time about graduates who emerge from college and are debt-ridden by tens, and sometimes, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. For every graduate, there are three or more who didn’t graduate and also have an accumulation of tens of thousands of dollars of student debt. Debt is endemic across the country.

As I write my blogs every weekday morning, I listen, with half an ear, to Dave Ramsey‘s radio show. The show provides a microcosm of American debt. Easily, 9 out of 10 callers, have massive student debt to Sallie Mae.

Now that debt is impacting other areas of the economy…like home ownership.

Housing market recovery hamstrung by buyers’ crippling student loan debt

10:39 PM 02/27/2014

High school seniors — and the parents encouraging them to attend college on borrowed money — may find the American dream of owning a home out of their reach after the bill for their student loans comes due.

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, loan applications for new homes fell a staggering 20 percent in the past four months. Meanwhile, student loan debt in the fourth quarter of 2013 rose five percent above the last quarter — outpacing mortgage debt, which rose only two percent in the same quarter.

“Overall debt is falling but student loan debt is increasing year-over-year and at a much faster rate,” chief executive David Stevens told The Washington Post. “[Young graduates] are already on the margin for being able to qualify for a mortgage. If you add on a large student loan debt payment of $400, $500 or $600 [a month], that’s going to impact your qualifying ability to buy a home. … First time home buyers are usually 40 percent to 45 percent of the mortgage market. Today they’re close to 35 percent and we think that’s directly correlated to student loan debt.”

Student loan debt is also non-dischargable — the federal government dispatches an army of 32 agencies to squeeze graduates for loan payments. In one remarkable case, a woman recovering from Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, an affliction for which the survival rate for patients quickly drops to zero, was told by federal agents that as long as she was still breathing, she had to pay her loans — until the Ninth Circuit Court intervened and discharged most of her debt. (RELATED: Federal loan sharks prey on cancer patients filing for bankruptcy)

“Student debt trumps all other consumer debt. It’s going to have an extraordinary dampening effect on young peoples’ ability to borrow for a home, and that’s going to impact the housing market and the economy at large,” Stevens said.

Student loan debt stands at a total of $1.08 trillion dollars, and tuition grows at an annual rate of 7.4 percent, outstripping both rising health-care costs and inflation. A college degree’s cost has grown 439 percent since 1983.

Over 37 million Americans are shackled with permanent debt, with 40 percent of households headed by Americans under 35 making the minimum monthly payments under interest rates ranging anywhere from 3.4 to eight percent.

This includes many mortgage brokers and realtors who rely on a steady influx of new customers to help pay down their own student loan debt. While home prices and mortgage interest rates are low for the time being, rising rates would likely push more young graduates out of the housing market altogether.

What is worse, guidance counselors in high schools and colleges actively encourage students to use student loans to finance their education. It’s a great deal for the colleges and universities, they have a government guaranteed stream of revenue. That stream allows them to steadily raise the cost of education because the competition is doing the same. There is no restraint on the institutions to curtail costs.

When my wife and I were in college, we had scholarships that covered most of our tuition. We had to work to cover our expenses for room and board. We often worked forty or more hours a week and also carried a full load of classes. I wasn’t in the top, grade-wise, of my classes, but I did pass and graduate with a degree. My wife’s story is similar to mine.

Student debt is a disease that, along with liberalism, has infected education. It is still possible to go to college and pay as you go. No, you won’t have time to party, go to Cancun on Spring break, or hang out with friends. But you can get a very good education, a degree from a recognized institution, and emerge with no or little debt.

It’s a lesson our local, state and federal governments need to learn.

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It could happen here

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I was driving home last night from a meeting and was listening to the radio. The program was about the riots in Kiev, the tensions between the protesters and Putin, Merkel, and Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. The show reported on the riots, the battles between protesters, police, security forces and the casualties.

A Russian expert, an academician from somewhere, stated that the western half of the Ukraine was no longer under the national government’s control. Only the Olympics and all the western media in Sochi has prevented Putin from taking action as the old USSR had done in East Germany, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. All the show participants agreed that Putin was starting a new cold war and Washington was clueless.

One of the more liberal, if that description was possible, participants on the show said, “That [anti-government riots] can’t happen here.” My immediate thought was, “Yet.” You see, there is already rebellion in some of our states. Not rebellion as in riots, clashes with police, firebombs, tear gas and water cannon, and gunshots.

No, these rebellions have been a quiet ones, so far. The state of Connecticut has, by the stroke of a pen, created hundreds of thousands potential felons. How? by requiring them to register their “assault weapons.” A few thousand complied with the law; an estimated 150,000 or more, did not. When it came time to register their weapons, they just stayed home…a hundred thousand or more refused to obey the law.

The penalty of non-compliance is a heavy fine and a felony conviction.

There is a similar situation building in New York state. The New York state government is threatening to confiscate ‘illegal’ firearms. Mike Vanderbeorgh, one of the bloggers who investigated the BATF’s Fast and Furious gun sales to Mexico’s drug cartels, wrote an open letter to the members of the Connecticut State Police. He also wrote one to the members of the New York State Police.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

An Open Letter to the Men and Women of the New York State Police. The Deadline Approaches. What do you intend to do?

To the men and women of the New York State Police:

Deadline, noun:

1. the latest time or date by which something should be completed. “The deadline for submissions is February 5th.” Synonyms: time limit, limit, finishing date, target date, cutoff point

2. historical: a line drawn around a prison beyond which prisoners were liable to be shot.

The deadline for registration of semi-automatic rifles of military utility under the the wildly-misnamed “SAFE Act” is 15 April.(1) With this law, Governor Cuomo and the politicians of your state have written a check with their pens that they expect you to cash in blood. This blood could either be that of yourselves or that of their intended victims — the heretofore law-abiding firearms owners of your state — but almost certainly both. Apparently it is of supreme indifference to Cuomo and Company whose blood is spilled or how much, as long as you, the men and women of the New York State Police, work THEIR will upon the people of New York. I am writing you today to remind you that the deadline approaches and to caution you that it doesn’t have to be this way.

A couple of days ago I wrote a similar open letter to the men and women of the Connecticut State Police, entitled, “You are NOT the enemy (UNLESS YOU CHOOSE TO BE.)”(2) It was so well received that many of my New York readers asked me to write one in a similar vein to you. As New Yorkers, I was informed, you appreciate being told the truth, directly, unvarnished and without much preamble, so I will try to make this letter as short as possible. Still, some introduction is in order since I’m certain most of you have never heard of me, nor is there any particular reason why you should.

My name is Mike Vanderboegh. I am one of the citizen journalists who — along with my friend David Codrea(3) — first broke the story of the Fast and Furious scandal on the Internet and who arranged the contacts between the ATF whistleblowers and investigators from the United States Senate, as well as media folks such as Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News. I have been a Second Amendment activist for more than 20 years and the Three Percent movement that I founded has been denounced on the national stage by that paragon of moral virtue, Bill Clinton. Three Percenters are uncompromising firearm owners who have stated very plainly for years that we will obey no further encroachments on our Second Amendment rights. Some of you, if you read this letter carelessly, may feel that it is a threat. It is not. Three Percenters also believe that to take the first shot in a conflict over principle is to surrender the moral high ground to the enemy. We condemn so-called collateral damage and terrorism such as that represented by the Oklahoma City Bombing and the Waco massacre. We are very aware that if you seek to defeat evil it is vital not to become the evil you claim to oppose. Thus, though this letter is certainly intended to deal with an uncomfortable subject, it is not a threat to anyone. However, it is important for everyone to understand that while we promise not to take the first shot over principle, we make no such promise if attacked, whether by common criminals or by the designated representatives of a criminal government grown arrogant and tyrannical and acting out an unconstitutional agenda under color of law. If we have any model, it is that of the Founding generation. The threat to public order and safety, unfortunately, comes from the current leaders of your state government who unthinkingly determined to victimize hitherto law-abiding citizens with a tyrannical law. They are the ones who first promised violence on the part of the state if your citizens did not comply with their unconstitutional diktat. Now, having made the threat (and placed the bet that you folks of the New York State Police will meekly and obediently carry it out) they can hardly complain that others take them seriously and try by every means, including this letter, to avoid conflict.

Like Connecticut, I have been informed that New York state authorities have opened a criminal investigation of me. This began when I visited your state the day after I gave a speech on the steps of the Connecticut state capitol last April entitled “Defy. Resist. Evade. Smuggle.” (4) Since that time, my friends and I have been regularly smuggling 20- and 30-round standard capacity rifle magazines into Connecticut, Maryland, Colorado and yes, New York. I have further irritated Governor Cuomo by sending him a sample magazine in my “Toys for Totalitarians” program. (5)

But as amusing as the Toys for Totalitarians program was, the issue is deadly serious. Cuomo is a typical politician — an empty, expensive suit that is merely wrapping paper for an insatiable appetite for other people’s liberty, property and control of their lives. But his appetites have moved us all, but especially you in New York state law enforcement, into a very dangerous undiscovered country. New York, like Connecticut, Maryland and Colorado, is now in a state of cold civil war, one that can flash to bloody conflict in an instant if someone, anyone, does something stupid. So please pay attention, for Cuomo and Co. have put all your asses on the line and are counting on your supine obedience to the enforcement of their unconstitutional diktat.

I have quoted about half of the open letter. You can read the complete letter at the website. According to Mike Vanderbeorgh, a state of ‘cold’ civil war exists in several states. Those ‘blue’ states think people will kowtow to the all-powerful government, whether it be federal or state. I fear they may be proven wrong if they persist in their citizen disarmament plans.

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UAW loses, a warning to Connecticut

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I’ve two items for today’s post. In a sense, both are related, the failure of big government and big unions. Both entities are large, faceless organizations whose purpose is to force people to do something against their will.

In Tennessee, the UAW has been trying to unionize a VW plant for some time. Pet NLRB pols and administrative judges have been greasing the ways from the beginning using all the power of the federal government to force the UAW on the VW workers. The vote was taken and the UAW lost.

LIVE coverage: Chattanooga Volkswagen plant votes against UAW

published Friday, February 14th, 2014, by Staff Report

Volkswagen Chattanooga

Volkswagen Chattanooga

Volkswagen’s Chattanooga employees have spurned the United Auto Workers, rejecting two years of wooing by the Detroit-based union in a vote of 712 to 626.

The vote count came late Friday after three days of balloting by VW workers in the National Labor Relations Board-supervised election. Some experts said the result is a blow to the UAW and that the VW plant was its best chance to organize a foreign-owned auto factory in the South.

Jack Nerad, executive market analyst of Kelley Blue Book, said UAW put a lot of work into trying to organize VW’s Chattanooga operation. He termed it “a publicity setback for certain.”

“On behalf of Volkswagen Group of America, I want to thank all of our Chattanooga production and maintenance employees for their participation in this week’s vote. They have spoken, and Volkswagen will respect the decision of the majority,” said Frank Fischer, CEO and chairman of Volkswagen Chattanooga. “The election results remain to be certified by the NLRB,” Fischer, said.

“Our employees have not made a decision that they are against a works council. Throughout this process, we found great enthusiasm for the idea of an American-style works council both inside and outside our plant,” Fischer noted. “Our goal continues to be to determine the best method for establishing a works council in accordance with the requirements of U.S. labor law to meet VW America’s production needs and serve our employees’ interests. ”

Sebastian Patta, vice president for human resources, said, “While there was intense outside interest in this election, our managers and employees inside the plant maintained high quality production and continued to work together in a calm and respectful manner.”

“Our commitment to Tennessee is a long-term investment. We look forward to continuing to work with the state of Tennessee and the city of Chattanooga to support job creation, growth, and economic development today and into the future,” Fischer added.

The voting had numerous groups observing the process and all, grudgingly for some, agreed the vote was valid. After two years and millions spent by the UAW, the employees of the VW plant spoke. No Union!  Richard Trumka of the AFL/CIO blamed outside right-wing extremist, economic terrorist, for the loss. I suppose his left-wing extremist, economic terrorist, union agitators that created the issue were blameless.

***

A situation is rising, one I’d hoped would not happen, in Connecticut. Connecticut passed a law requiring all gun owners to register their firearms.

Law-abiding Connecticut gun owners may face FELONY CHARGES for failing to register weapons

6:05 PM 02/13/2014

Connecticut’s gun control deadline requiring gun registration has come and gone — putting tens of thousands of law-abiding citizens at risk of felony charges, should officials decide to crack down on what one gun owner called a stand of “civil disobedience.” Last January after the Sandy Hook shooting, Connecticut passed a stringent new gun control laws, and in April, Gov. Dannel Mallory approved restrictions which redefined the definition of an “assault weapon” to ban 100 more types of semi-automatic weapons. The law’s grandfather clause allowed gun owners already possessing AR-15s and similar weapons to keep them, but they must submit their personal information to a statewide registry. A photo taken by George Roelofson depicting long lines of gun owners waiting to register their weapons and ammunition went viral in December as the law’s deadline approached:But that’s only a tiny fraction of the state’s gun owners.

Now, as Connecticut’s The Courant estimates, as many as 100,000 gun owners with 350,000 unregistered weapons have yet to come forward, making state officials uneasy. Furthermore, estimates concerning banned magazines holding more than ten rounds — which have no serial numbers and are impossible to track unless registered — show that only 36,932 have been entered into the state’s databases, while over two million remain on the market. “I honestly thought from my own standpoint that the vast majority would register. If you pass laws that people have no respect for and they don’t follow them, then you have a real problem,” Republican state Sen. Tony Guglielmo, ranking senator on the legislature’s public safety committee, told The Courant. Last week, a gun owner informed Guglielmo during a constituents’ meeting that he and fellow gun owners refused to submit to the law’s registration requirements. “He made the analogy to prohibition. I said, ‘You’re talking about civil disobedience, and he said ‘Yes,’ “ Guglielmo said. Mike Lawlor, undersecretary of Connecticut’s Office of Policy and Management, said that the state will not yet aggressively pursue unregistered gun owners — even sending out a reminder letter could spark tensions between gun owners and officials. Lawlor instead suggested first extending the deadline and holding an “outreach campaign” to encourage submissions. Lawlor added that the law, having technically rendered otherwise law-abiding citizens with no criminal history felons in one fell swoop, has partly succeeded in its goal to eliminate assault weapon ownership in the state. “Like anything else, people who violate the law face consequences,” he told The Courant, leaving open the possibility of future prosecutions. “That’s their decision. The consequences are pretty clear… There’s nothing unique about this. The goal is to have fewer of these types of weapons in circulation.” Meanwhile, Scott Wilson, president of Connecticut Citizens Defense League, Inc. (CCDL) has led the charge against Connecticut’s gun restrictions, suing the state in May for passing an unconstitutional law that violates the Second Amendment. “I think that the state would be better served using its resources going after violent criminals — ones that are perpetuating acts of violence in their community — instead of going after law-abiding citizens,” Wilson told The Daily Caller. Many Connecticut gun owners either remain unaware that the law requires registration, or don’t believe that their particular models fall under the law’s jurisdiction at all, Wilson added. He also noted that he had been contacted by many gun owners after the registration deadline passed who were afraid to come forward and get slapped with criminal charges. “My sincerest hope is that the state of Connecticut will come to [its] senses and the law that was passed Jan. 1 will one day be repealed by the state legislature,” Wilson said.

The article concludes with this statement. “Connecticut state police declined to comment, while the state’s firearm licensing department could not be reached.” There is great concern from a growing number of Connecticut citizens and others around the country that the Connecticut State Police would start confiscation raids on the homes of those who failed to register. When officials were contacted and asked that question, those same officials refused to answer.The seriousness of the situation has lead to gun-rights activists across the country to weigh in on the side of the state’s gunowners. Mike Vanderbeorgh, one of the bloggers who investigated the BATF’s Fast and Furious gun sales to Mexico’s drug cartels, wrote this open letter to the members of the Connecticut State Police. The email is long, too long to quote here. Instead, I’ll post portions of the email and ask that you follow the link in the article title and read the entire message yourself.

The following letter was sent via email to members of the Connecticut State Police, Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection. There are 1,212 email addresses on the list. There were 62 bounce-backs.15 February 2014To the men and women of the Connecticut State Police and the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection: My name is Mike Vanderboegh. Few of you will know who I am, or even will have heard of the Three Percent movement that I founded, though we have been denounced on the national stage by that paragon of moral virtue, Bill Clinton. Three Percenters are uncompromising firearm owners who have stated very plainly for years that we will obey no further encroachments on our Second Amendment rights. Some of you, if you read this carelessly, may feel that it is a threat. It is not. Three Percenters also believe that to take the first shot in a conflict over principle is to surrender the moral high ground to the enemy. We condemn so-called collateral damage and terrorism such as that represented by the Oklahoma City Bombing and the Waco massacre. We are very aware that if you seek to defeat evil it is vital not to become the evil you claim to oppose. Thus, though this letter is certainly intended to deal with an uncomfortable subject, it is not a threat to anyone. However, it is important for everyone to understand that while we promise not to take the first shot over principle, we make no such promise if attacked, whether by common criminals or by the designated representatives of a criminal government grown arrogant and tyrannical and acting out an unconstitutional agenda under color of law. If we have any model, it is that of the Founding generation. The threat to public order and safety, unfortunately, comes from the current leaders of your state government who unthinkingly determined to victimize hitherto law-abiding citizens with a tyrannical law. They are the ones who first promised violence on the part of the state if your citizens did not comply with their unconstitutional diktat. Now, having made the threat (and placed the bet that you folks of the Connecticut State Police will meekly and obediently carry it out) they can hardly complain that others take them seriously and try by every means, including this letter, to avoid conflict.……tyrannical politicians in your state have been writing checks with their mouths that they expect you to cash with your blood. We have moved, thanks to them, into a very dangerous undiscovered country. Connecticut is now in a state of cold civil war, one that can flash to bloody conflict in an instant if someone, anyone, does something stupid. So please pay attention, for Malloy and Co. have put all your asses on the line and are counting on your supine obedience to the enforcement of their unconstitutional diktat. I apparently first came to your attention with this speech on the steps of your state capitol on 20 April 2013. It was very well received by the audience but virtually ignored by the lapdog press of your state. If I may, I’d like to quote some of the more salient points of it that involve you.“An unconstitutional law is void.” It has no effect. So says American Jurisprudence, the standard legal text. And that’s been upheld by centuries of American law. An unconstitutional law is VOID. Now that is certainly true. But the tricky part is how do we make that point when the local, state and federal executive and legislative branches as well as the courts are in the hands of the domestic enemies of the Constitution. Everyone who is currently trying to take away your right to arms starts out by saying “I support the 2nd Amendment.” Let me tell you a home truth that we know down in Alabama — Barack Obama supports the 2nd Amendment just about as much as Adolf Hitler appreciated Jewish culture, or Joseph Stalin believed in individual liberty. Believe what politicians do, not what they say. Because the lie is the attendant of every evil. . .Before this year no one thought that other firearms and related items would ever be banned — but they were, they have been. No one thought that the authorities of your state would pass laws making criminals out of the previously law-abiding — but they did. If they catch you violating their unconstitutional laws, they will — when they please — send armed men to work their will upon you. And people — innocent of any crime save the one these tyrants created — will die resisting them.You begin to see, perhaps, how you fit into this. YOU are the “armed men” that Malloy and Company will send “to work their will” upon the previously law-abiding. In other words, this law takes men and women who are your natural allies in support of legitimate law enforcement and makes enemies of the state of them, and bully boy political police of you. …

Just like King George, such people will not care, nor modify their behavior, by what you say, no matter how loudly or in what numbers you say it. They will only pay attention to what you DO. So defy them. Resist their laws. Evade them. Smuggle in what they command you not to have. Only by our ACTS will they be impressed. Then, if they mean to have a civil war, they will at least have been informed of the unintended consequences of their tyrannical actions. Again I say — Defy. Resist. Evade. Smuggle. If you wish to stay free and to pass down that freedom to your children’s children you can do no less than to become the lawbreakers that they have unconstitutionally made of you. Accept that fact. Embrace it. And resolve to be the very best, most successful lawbreakers you can be.
Well, I guess at least some of my audience that day took my message to heart. As Connecticut newspapers have finally begun reporting – “Untold Thousands Flout Gun Registration Law” – and national commentators are at last noticing, my advice to defy, resist and evade this intolerable act is well on the way. The smuggling, as modest as it is, I can assure is also happening. This law is not only dangerous it is unenforceable by just about any standard you care to judge it by. Let’s just look at the numbers mentioned in the Courant story.

By the end of 2013, state police had received 47,916 applications for assault weapons certificates, Lt. Paul Vance said. An additional 2,100 that were incomplete could still come in.

That 50,000 figure could be as little as 15 percent of the rifles classified as assault weapons owned by Connecticut residents, according to estimates by people in the industry, including the Newtown-based National Shooting Sports Foundation. No one has anything close to definitive figures, but the most conservative estimates place the number of unregistered assault weapons well above 50,000, and perhaps as high as 350,000.

And that means as of Jan. 1, Connecticut has very likely created tens of thousands of newly minted criminals — perhaps 100,000 people, almost certainly at least 20,000 — who have broken no other laws. By owning unregistered guns defined as assault weapons, all of them are committing Class D felonies.

“I honestly thought from my own standpoint that the vast majority would register,” said Sen. Tony Guglielmo, R-Stafford, the ranking GOP senator on the legislature’s public safety committee. “If you pass laws that people have no respect for and they don’t follow them, then you have a real problem.”

This blithering idiot of a state senator is, as I warned Mike Lawlor the other day, extrapolating. It is a very dangerous thing, extrapolation, especially when you are trying to predict the actions of an enemy you made yourself whom you barely recognize let alone understand.

The email continues. Suffice to say, the situation in Connecticut has the potential to be very dangerous. Firearm confiscation led to the confrontation at Lexington in 1775 that led to the Revolution. If the government of Connecticut continues down the path like that of King George, no one knows what will happen. It the State Police follow the orders of the state government, sooner or later, there will be armed resistance.All of us around the country do not want that to happen.

The consequences are too dear. Public pressure can make those petty tyrants in the Connecticut state government reverse their path. It has happened before.In the end, the real issue is not about so-called ‘assault weapons.’ It is about the supremacy of government over the individual.

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Aftermath

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We had another incident of “workplace violence,” yesterday. the reports were still sketchy when Senator Feinstein started blaming assault rifles. The liberal media tweeted that “gun control creates tyrannies like Australia and Canada.

As it turns out, there was no AR-15 used. The shooter brought a shotgun and then took one or more pistols from his first victims, private contract guards. The facts are irrelevant to liberals. Their purpose is to pursue their agenda regardless of the facts. Oh, they’ll use facts when it supports their agenda, but when there aren’t any facts, they’ll ignore the ones that are present.

If we want to refute the acts of these liberals, we must adopt ‘some’ of their tactics, i.e., never lose sight of our end-goal, never let up pushing our agenda, never cease working to change government, to limit its scope and downsize it and limit the power of the federal government.

There is some good coming from the Navy Yard shootings. There is a building ground swell to address the problem of ‘Gun Free Zones.”

How many must die in gun free zones before we learn?

Monday, September 16, 2013 – Judson Phillips: Cold, Hard Truth by Judson Phillips

WASHINGTON.  September 16, 2013. – Why in God’s name do we make our military people so vulnerable that they have to rely on the DC police today?

Confusion swirled around the shootings at the Washington Naval Yard today. Was it one gunman or was it several? How did this gunman or gunmen get access to a secured military facility? How did one rifle and possibly one shotgun get onto a secured military facility?

Over the next few days these questions will be answered but there is one question that must be answered.

When will we learn from these tragedies?

The early reports about the shooting talked about the police officers that responded to the shooting. At least two cops are among the victims.

Let’s think about this for a second.

The United States Navy is one of the most powerful military organizations in the world.  The Navy’s arsenal could wipe most nations off the face of the earth. It was the Navy that killed Osama Bin Laden.

So why was one of our most important Naval facilities so vulnerable?

It is because it was made a gun free zone.

Like Washington D.C., one of the crime capitols of America, the Washington Navy Yard was a gun free zone. Translation: It was a target rich environment.

The United States Navy is actually made up of two parts. The first is the Navy, the other part is the United States Marine Corps. 

The Marines advertise themselves as “The Few, The Proud, The Marines.” They have a storied history of fighting incredible battles against overwhelming odds. Before political correctness killed it, the Marines used to refer to themselves as the “Mens’ Department of the Navy.”

Marines and a lot of sailors are trained to use weapons. 

This is Fort Hood all over again.

At Fort Hood, Nidal Hasan burst in on soldiers preparing to deploy. Even though many of these soldiers were combat trained, they were not allowed to carry weapons at Fort Hood. 

Hasan was only stopped when he was shot by civilian police officers on the base.

Now we have seen the same tragedy revisited at the Washington Navy Yard.

These tragedies are not simply limited to Fort Hood and the Washington Naval Yard.   When a crazy gunman wants to go on a rampage, where do they choose to go on their rampage? They choose a gun free zone. Columbine was a gun free zone.  So was Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook. 

The problem in America is not too many guns. The problem is we listen to politicians who should not even be entrusted to decide what is for dinner. We have seen this pattern too often. 

Politicians, many of whom are protected by armed men, disarm Americans and make us victims. 

The cold, hard truth is when Americans are armed they can fight back and shootings like Fort Hood and the Navy Yard would not happen. Our founding fathers understood this.

How many more times are we going to let the politicians be wrong before we the people stand up and tell them no?

That is a very good question. Here in Missouri, we attempted to correct that situation for our schools by allowing teachers and other school employees to be trained in the use of weapons and to carry weapons in schools. Why? To protect our children. That effort failed. Our democrat governor vetoed the bill and quislings in the state senate failed to override his veto.

Other states have been more successful, Texas for instance. It is time for us to address these issues. The liberals point to Europe, Australia and Canada as examples for gun control. I would note that Canada’s gun registration law and database failed. People refused to comply and eventually the registration program was rejected. In Australia, the former liberal government was just voted out—by a significant margin. There, gun control wasn’t the prime issue but it was an issue. We have yet to see what the new “conservative” government does but I would suspect a lessening of their gun control laws to be a part of their agenda.

The liberal always seem to point to Europe as an example to emulate. They overlook or deny Europe’s flaws and forget one vital item. We are not Europeans. Many of us has European ancestry but we left Europe behind. We have no desire nor need to emulate a failing society.

Colorado is a nearby example. The democrats are in a state of denial. They blame everyone and everything for the loss of their two state Senators. They refuse to believe it the success of the recall was due to the bills the democrats in Colorado’s legislature. NY Mayor Bloomberg spent $350,000 of his own money in support of the two recalled senators and failed. The democrats deny that outside influence is another factor for their failure. Most importantly, they overlook the fact that democrats voted to recall the senators as well and in significant numbers!

We have our work set out for us here in Missouri. We can take heart in the examples above that our cause is not futile.

Friday Follies for August 30, 2013

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Labor Day creeped up on me this year. I’d completely forgotten about it until earlier this week. When I was growing up in the Illinois coal country, Labor Day was as big a yearly event as was Independence Day. It was a day of parades, Flags and picnics.

Most of the families in my southern Illinois county had union ties. In fact, thinking back, I don’t remember anyone who didn’t have some kind of union connection.

No more…and, I believe, that’s a good thing. Industry has evolved since the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Industry depended on muscle power, as a source of power in the mines, or directing machinery as mechanization grew. Health, wages and working conditions were the motivations for unions during the early industrial age. The unions won.

But that changed. As early as WW1 and the coming decades, unions were infiltrated by socialists operatives whose goals were not the benefit of the union membership, but a goal of politics. In many cases those union leaders were directed by foreign governments, which socialists admit.

Once again, we will celebrate Labor Day this coming weekend. There will be fewer parades and flag-waving. Families will still have picnics and that last fling at the lake. Union involvement, like the numbers of union membership, is declining, and that, too, is a good thing.

The country has evolved. We no longer need an archaic hold-over of 19th century economic and political thought. Communism and socialism has been proven false. It’s time to move on.

***

Followup on yesterday’s post.

Obama’s new executive order will kill the 110-year-old Civilian Marksmanship Program

4:12 PM 08/29/2013

The White House announced on Thursday that it intends to “ban almost all re-imports of military surplus firearms to private entities” through executive order, which would effectively shut down the 110-year-old Civilian Marksmanship Program.

In a Fact Sheet published on Whitehouse.gov today referencing the upcoming executive order the ban on importing military weapons is designed to “keep military-grade firearms off our streets.” Exceptions for import may be allowed for museums.

The CMP tightly controls the distribution of obsolete military weapons. The program was created by the U.S. Congress as part of the 1903 War Department Appropriations Act with the purpose of allowing civilians to hone their marksmanship skills, should they later be called into military service.

Participants receiving firearms through the CMP must comply with all state and federal firearm laws and undergo a background check conducted by a dealer holding a Federal Firearms License in order to receive the gun.

Additionally, they must also be a member of a CMP affiliated shooting club, making participating in the program more difficult than anyone trying to purchase a firearm through usual retail channels.

The Civilian Marksmanship Program was administered by the United States Army from 1916 through 1996 when it was changed to the Corporation for the Promotion of Rifle Practice & Firearms Safety, a 501(c) (3) organization federally chartered by the U.S. Congress.

There are no data indicating any of the weapons involved in homicide were imported surplus military rifles. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s homicide crime statistics, rifles accounted for only 323 deaths out of 12,664 homicides in 2011, the most recent data set provided by the FBI.

“Apart from a donation of surplus .22 and .30 caliber rifles in the Army’s inventory to the CMP, the CMP receives no federal funding,” the CMP website states, adding that they have been overwhelmed by requests and orders are taking 30-60 days to ship product.

The rifles that the Executive Order would affect are typically from U.S. allies and are pre-Vietnam era. Without the importation of these rifles, the CMP is likely to become defunct and thus destroying a 110 year tradition of saving military arms and their civilian ownership.

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Quote of the day. A bit tongue-in-cheek.

Obama talks tough, carries matchstick

AUGUST 30, 2013 AT 6:25 AM

President Obama is serious this time. No, really. Critics of the president’s approach to the Syrian crisis don’t understand the many nuances undergirding the president’s philosophy of using “smart power” to lead from behind. Forget all those previous signals of how serious he is about taking decisive action to stop the killing. He means it. This time. No, really, he does.

Obama’s history of dithering captures the most basic problem confronting the chief executive on Syria: He’s promised action over and over again, but in the end has actually offered little more than words. That is why nobody should be surprised that Americans, as well as leaders in Moscow, Beijing, London, Paris, Tehran and Damascus, find it difficult to put much stock in what Obama says now about the Syrian crisis and what he might do in response to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s blatant use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people.

You can read the rest of the column here.

***

Several times a year I have a conference with the folks who manage my 401K. I had one such conference this week. The meeting held to its usual agenda, their outlook for the economy, the steps they are taking to reduce the impacts of any unexpected events and the distribution of funds across stocks, bonds, commodities and cash—much of the funds going into the latter category this year.

The 401K manager asked a new question this time. “How is your local economy?” The topic quickly changed to one of the conversion of full time jobs to part-time jobs, the loss of healthcare and other benefits to spouses and family, in general, the impact of the coming Obamacare fiasco throughout the nation.

The MSM has alluded to some of these impacts. FOX has had a few stories, but few people in the media seem to care about the revolutionary changes coming to the workplace. I contributed a story of local warehousemen losing their full-time jobs and benefits and being replaced by part-time employees…employees who won’t have benefits.

My story wasn’t the only one. The open letter below posted via Freedom Works is such an example of our changing economy.

An Open Letter on Obamacare

By Jon Gabriel on August 29, 2013

Craig Daliessio isn’t by nature an angry man. But recent events have brought him to the end of his rope.

“The past five years have just worn me down,” he told me over the phone. He couldn’t help but write about his experience.

After years of economic struggle, the loss of his home, and failure to find steady employment, Daliessio shared “An Open Letter to Barack Obama,” which is spreading quickly on blogs and social media.

Mr. President, three days ago I was informed that a job I had been offered only a week before, has been withdrawn. The company decided to freeze hiring for the foreseeable future. Part of their reasoning was the rising cost of healthcare, making it unaffordable for them to provide. This unaffordable-ness came as a result of your “Affordable Care Act.”

Five years ago I might have smiled at the irony of those words. But I’m not smiling.

In the letter, Daliessio describes his life since December 2008 when he lost his career as a mortgage broker. The real estate collapse hit the industry hard. Workers without political connections bore most of the pain.

Soon he lost his Nashville-area dream house, but as a single dad he wanted to stay close to his daughter. Instead of fleeing to Texas, North Dakota or another conservative holdout where jobs were slightly more plentiful, he stayed in Tennessee.

Without a home, he lived in his car.

Sleeping in your car is actually against the law. It’s vagrancy and so it required me to hide my car in some tall brush behind a church in Nashville. I took showers at the County Rec Center. I ate every other day sometimes. I worked every odd job I could find and put out hundreds of resumes. To date I have put out almost 250 resumes to no avail… I kept on trying. I kept on being my daughter’s dad. I refused to let her see me broken so I hid my tears.

Instead of limiting himself to a career in his profession, Daliessio worked odd jobs and even resumed his college education through an online program. A year ago he graduated from Liberty University. He still didn’t have a home, but now he had an education. And hope.

“But no doors opened,” he said. He continued with the odd jobs, sending resumes, and sleeping in his car or a friend’s couch or a borrowed office space. “Writing became a haven,” he told me. Over the past five years, he has written and self-published four books, the most recent titled Remembering America.

Earlier this month, it appeared as if the long job search was about to bear fruit. A job offer was extended. But last week the company withdrew their offer to Daliessio due in part to Obamacare. That law requires him to sign up for a health insurance exchange, but he finally decided that enough is enough.

I will NOT be registering for that exchange. I am a man. I am a dad. I am an American. I want to pay my own way. I refuse to let others pay for something I would gladly pay for myself…

I want a job. I want to work, and pay my own way. Your job is to create an environment whereby employers can hire men and women like me. Then we can take responsibility for ourselves, and pay our own way.

I respectfully refuse your handout, sir.

Though politically conservative, Daliessio has never been a bomb-thrower. “I don’t wish [Obama] ill, but I wish people would wake up,” he told me. “The country is stuck in neutral. My letter came from a place of frustration and brokenness.”

Words for us all.

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Obama blocks CMP—more Gun Control

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By executive fiat, Obama issued two “gun control” orders today “because Congress wouldn’t.” One edict directly affects the Civilian Marksmanship Program, the CMP, who has been the agent distributing former US military rifles to veterans and qualified citizens. I bought my M1 over a decade ago through the CMP.

The source of those rifles in the last few years, has been the return of M1 Garands and M1 Carbines supplied to foreign governments during WW2 and the Korean War. Korea and Denmark have been some of the foreign sources of returning American-made military rifles. Those and other sources now, by Obama’s edict, are blocked.

The other provision closes “loopholes” where some felons could conceivably circumvent their prohibition of purchasing weapons by using a corporation or trust. My non-judical mind wonders if this edict could also spell trouble for licensed firearm dealers, distributors, importers and manufacturers as well.

Here is this morning’s headline by the leftist Associated Press, an organization who has yet to cover a gun control issue it didn’t like.

Obama offers new gun control steps

By JOSH LEDERMAN — Aug. 29 9:53 AM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Striving to take action where Congress would not, the Obama administration announced new steps Thursday on gun control, curbing the import of military surplus weapons and proposing to close a little-known loophole that lets felons and others circumvent background checks by registering guns to corporations.

Four months after a gun control drive collapsed spectacularly in the Senate, President Barack Obama added two more executive actions to a list of 23 steps the White House determined Obama could take on his own to reduce gun violence. With the political world focused on Mideast tensions and looming fiscal battles, the move signaled Obama’s intent to show he hasn’t lost sight of the cause he took up after 20 first graders and six adults were gunned down last year in an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

One new policy will end a government practice that lets military weapons, sold or donated by the U.S. to allies, be reimported into the U.S. by private entities, where some may end up on the streets. The White House said the U.S. has approved 250,000 of those guns to be reimported since 2005; under the new policy, only museums and a few other entities like the government will be eligible to reimport military-grade firearms.

The Obama administration is also proposing a federal rule to stop those who would be ineligible to pass a background check from skirting the law by registering a gun to a corporation or trust. The new rule would require people associated with those entities, like beneficiaries and trustees, to undergo the same type of fingerprint-based background checks as individuals if they want to register guns.

…

The Obama administration is also proposing a federal rule to stop those who would be ineligible to pass a background check from skirting the law by registering a gun to a corporation or trust. The new rule would require people associated with those entities, like beneficiaries and trustees, to undergo the same type of fingerprint-based background checks as individuals if they want to register guns.

…

These days, Obama mentions gun control with far less regularity than when it appeared the Senate was poised to take action, although Obama did meet Tuesday with 18 city mayors to discuss ways to contain youth violence. And with immigration and pressing fiscal issues dominating Congress’ agenda, the prospects for reviving gun legislation appear negligible.

With Jones’ confirmation at ATF, the White House has completed or made significant progress on all but one of the 23 executive actions Obama had previously ordered in January, the White House said. Still lingering is an effort to finalize regulations to require insurers to cover mental health at parity with medical benefits, although the White House said that it is committed to making that happen by the end of 2013.

The new rules for guns registered to corporations will follow the traditional regulatory process, with a 90-day comment period before ATF reviews suggestions and finalizes the rule. Last year, ATF received 39,000 requests to register guns to corporations and trusts.

I’ve trimmed the AP story to remove the adulation of Obama and Biden. I suggest you follow the link and read the entire article. The battle between us and liberal tyrants has not and will not cease.

“Eternal vigilence is the price of liberty.”
–Wendell Phillips

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