Weekly Gun News – Edition 56

36 thoughts on “Weekly Gun News – Edition 56”

1. “Basically, the author suggests the alternative to Merkel are Nazis or Commies. There was a time when Germany was faced with that choice before, and if you recall, it didn’t end well.”

   I’ll apologize for quibbling over history, because I’ve used similar rhetoric myself, but Germany in 1933 had a much more reasonable choice than between the fascists and the communists; a simple plurality chose to align with fascism.

   The results of the 1933 Reichstag election showed the Nazis having a substantial lead over the third-place Communists, with the nominally moderate Social Democrats coming in second to the Nazis.

   It was the fourth-place, Catholic “Centre Party” forming a coalition with the Nazis in the Reichstag that effectively delivered all political power to the Nazis. The Nazis promised to respect the interests of the church, and the Centre Party believed them. The Communists never were serious challengers for (small-d) democratic control of the government.

   While we pretty much compress everybody into our two parties — narrow interests effectively form coalitions by aligning with one party or the other, and joining them — our current ruling church+state coalition compressed into the Republican Party bears at least a slight resemblance to the Reichstag coalition of 1933.

2. I’d rather have NAZIs than Muslims.

   1. Well, that makes one of us. ;-)

      I’m glad to hear someone finally admit it out loud, though.

      1. +1 but it can be hard to tell the difference. See Mufti.

         1. The thing with religions is, authoritarians can find justifications for whatever they want to do, in any of them.

            Rank and file Nazis were mostly Catholics and Lutherans, but their religion didn’t seem to be much of a hindrance to embracing their ideology; and at the time Catholicism was theologically antisemitic.

            Jewish, Christian, or Muslim authoritarians could probably function just fine working from Leviticus alone.

            1. Islam is not simply a religion. They are an unassimilable “other” when in large enough concentrations. Parallel societies should not be allowed to form in our midst. Could you imagine the disruptive effects on Saudi society if a million bumpkins from West Virginia suddenly decided to seek asylum in their borders? What makes recent events in Germany any different? Why should the West give it all away?

               Setting aside the fact that Muslim populations are on average more violent, more misogynistic, and quite frankly, have ugly beards, they simply aren’t us. (Plus who the fuck wants to see women covered up from head to toe?). And like most non-white and/or non-western populations, they stick with their own at the voting booth and multiply at a faster clip. This is a threat to our self determination because our naive concept of “rights” will lead to our ruin. They will only seek legal protections from the will of the majority until they themselves become the majority. The security of our rights can only be secured by remaining the majority – the Constitution is nothing more than a piece of paper which means drastically different things to different people.

               Sure, small numbers of Muslims can be integrated and become fully “American”. Likewise for Mexicans. But we will no longer be “us” if large concentrations of either are allowed to flood in too quickly. I used to struggle with admitting this to myself, but I’ve come to the conclusion that an uncomfortable truth is preferable to misery in service to a big lie. I don’t hate the “other”, but it is a monstrous lie that to fear the consequences of allowing them influence in our sphere is somehow “irrational”.

               I have no problem “admitting” these self-evident truths. NAZIS come and go, but demographic shifts are forever.

               1. Charles De Gaulle:

                  “It is very good that there are yellow French, black French, brown French. They show that France is open to all races and has a universal vocation. But [it is good] on condition that they remain a small minority. Otherwise, France would no longer be France. We are, after all, primarily a European people of the white race, Greek and Latin culture, and the Christian religion.

                  Don’t tell me stories! Muslims, have you gone to see them? Have you watched them with their turbans and jellabiyas? You can see that they are not French! Those who advocate integration have the brain of a hummingbird. Try to mix oil and vinegar. Shake the bottle. After a second, they will separate again.

                  Arabs are Arabs, the French are French. Do you think the French body politic can absorb ten million Muslims, who tomorrow will be twenty million, after tomorrow forty? If we integrated, if all the Arabs and Berbers of Algeria were considered French, would you prevent them to settle in France, where the standard of living is so much higher? My village would no longer be called Colombey-The-Two-Churches but Colombey-The-Two-Mosques.”

               2. “They are an unassimilable “other” when in large enough concentrations.”

                  Who isn’t?

                  “Parallel societies should not be allowed to form in our midst.”

                  My Irish Catholic g-grandparents recorded Real Anglo-Saxon Americans saying the same thing when they arrived in the 1850s.

                  1. Yes, this oft-repeated example of the “white ethnics” who came here in the 20’s is getting tired. If you honestly think that large numbers of Middle Eastern and North African immigrants entering Europe is even remotely the same thing as the waves of Irish and Italian immigrants who entered the United States back in the ’20s, I have to question whether you are being honest with yourself.

                     In the American case, Italians and Irish mostly blended in because they looked roughly the same as the WASPS already here. And in saner times people viewed assimilation to their host cultures as a duty, not as an affront. At least not out in the open as they do now. And the whole Catholic/Protestant divide was largely eradicated with the collapse of Christianity in Western public life, something that Islam has yet to experience (if they ever do).

                     Keep deluding yourself if you wish, but the fact remains that racial and ethnic fault lines will stubbornly persist no matter what Emma Lazerath’s Zeroth Amendment has to say about it. Because we’re all human, we’re all different and always will be.

                     1. I would recommend to you the book “How the Irish Became White.” Irish weren’t even regarded as being ethnically white, and that was compounded with their Catholic religion, which was regarded as being virtually demonic by True Patriots. Teddy Roosevelt did not regard Irish as authentically white.

                        If you are “tired” of hearing that past waves of immigrants were regarded exactly the same way mideasterners are (by Real Americans) today, well, I guess that’s tough shit. Take a nap, because it’s not going to stop being historically true.

                        And just for honesty, consistency, and to make a point, my Irish forebearers who were native born American citizens, regarded Italians and other Southern European immigrants, exactly the same way their parents had been regarded when they were new immigrants — as Alien Invaders.

                        The irony concealed in the title of that book, “How the Irish Became White,” was that when the Irish came as new immigrants, they were first regarded as racially non-white; but once they had established themselves economically, and their money had been accepted, they behaved exactly the way the self-proclaimed “whites” had behaved toward the immigrant generations.

                        I’m not really current on such things, but I’m told that a shamrock tattoo was once an ambiguous White Power symbol, back when white supremacists still needed to be somewhat ambiguous and circumspect regarding their philosophy and affiliation. Of course, in less than two years, that has ceased to be something that needs to be concealed.

                        1. @Weatherman, why should we have to conceal anything? Why not simply tell the truth? We use loaded terms such as “good/safe neighborhood”, and “good schools” as stand-ins for “white neighborhood” and “white school” because they are essentially the same thing. Our revealed preferences show this to be true. It does not matter if the situation is the result of environmental factors or if the differences between population groups are genetic, the end result is the same – conflict. Why is it so terrible that people are beginning to notice that they’re being gaslighted with this crap?

                           And even if I were to accept the premise that the “white ethnics” who migrated to the US almost 100 years ago can even remotely be compared to the current wave of African/Middle Eastern Muslims flooding Europe (I don’t), why does this necessarily mean that we MUST accept the current situation?

                           Where does this moral imperative come from? What’s in it for us (by “us”, I mean the white Western world)? Why should any first-world (white) country be party to a refugee convention where there is little chance that its citizens will ever need to seek refuge in the third world?

            2. The Muslims in the 1930s and 1940s worked hand in glove with the real Nazis. Not only the Mufti but Rashid Ali in Iraq and the Handschar SS division and for modern times there is this.
               http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/26/world/anti-semitic-elders-of-zion-gets-new-life-on-egypt-tv.html

               As the NYT correctly (for a change) notes the Protocols were a forgery by the Okruna but needless to say they were popular with the Nazi and in the modern Middle East.

               1. I’d recommend reviewing the Wikipedia article “Relations between the Nazis and the Arab World.” It’s a start to work from.

                  Cooperation between the Germans and Arabs (who of course were almost all Muslims) was based more on justified Arab hatred for the British and French, that had been earned in WWI and immediately after, when the Brits had made conflicting promises to gain support against the Ottoman Empire from both the Arabs and Zionists.

                  That the British had reneged on their false promises to the Arabs, and were tacitly supporting the Zionists, had become clear immediately after WWI. Refer to the “Balfour Agreement.”

                  In short, for the Arabs, footsying with the Germans seemed entirely rational, and was not a product of irrational ethnic or religious hatreds. (Remember that American corporations were still footsying with the Nazis, at least up to December 9, 1941; and some claim long afterwards.)

                  1. Remember that we are not talking about Arabs and Nazis here, we are talking about Muslims and Nazis. Obviously, there is overlap but SS Handschar were not Arabs but (mostly) Bosniacs. There was also collaboration between Nazis and various Muslim groups in the Soviet Union who were not Arabs either. To assert that the British favored the Zionists during the interwar period is absurd. Only during the Arab revolt did this happen. The rest of the time, they favored the Arabs. Remember that Jewish immigration to Palestine was banned for much of this time. And finally, I do not find the fact that American corporations collaborated with Nazis to be justification for Muslim collaboration. Both should be condemned.

3. Haven’t seen you mention the 11th Circuit striking down the Florida law restricting doctors asking patients about guns.

   https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/02/17/eleventh-circuit-en-banc-strikes-down-restriction-on-doctors-speech-to-patients-about-guns/?utm_term=.b614b96698ab

   1. I’m deeply conflicted about the Docs v. Glocks issue. I think the Court made the right call. I do think there’s First Amendment implications with shutting people up.

      1. But the government does it all the time. Can’t give Psychiatric or Medical advice without a license. Can’t give law advice without one. Would a law that says they can’t give advice about firearms without training fly in court?

         1. This. Holding to principle in an existential fight is a recipe for defeat.

         2. “Can’t give Psychiatric or Medical advice without a license.”

            Pennsylvania has an interesting legal loophole for that, at least for medical matters: You can’t practice medicine for pay without a license. However you can accept donations as long as you don’t specify the amount.

            That is widely practiced by chiropractors, and I’m told, by Pennsylvania Dutch “Pow-wow Men,” a kind of regional faith healer.

            So in the worst case, you could probably provide firearm training either for free, or for a donation.

            (Anecdotally, many years ago my club had a bar that skirted the liquor laws by serving canned beer in return for a donation. A plain clothes Liquor Control Board agent came in one weekend, ordered a beer, and asked what the donation should be. He wouldn’t be deterred from the question and kept harassing the bartender until the bartender said, “Oh, Jesus Christ, just put a buck (or whatever) in the can,” and which point the agent arrested the bartender and busted the club for illegal alcohol sales.)

4. Practically anything you can say about today’s immigrant groups today has been said before. Folks: any religion can promote barbarity if you take it too seriously, or focus on the parts of it that are barbaric. Various muslim cultures take Islam seriously and less seriously. Kurds, for instance, don’t seem to have the same pathologies as the Wahabbists. Persians were remarkably mellow before the Revolution radicalized them.

   I’m actually pretty sympathetic to the idea that “letting in immigrants means letting in your future rulers.” And I will agree there’s a level of immigration that a society can’t handle. Take the Hun invasion of Europe, which caused a refugee crisis for Rome, which reluctantly permitted large numbers of Visigoths to relocate south of the Danube.

   But also recall that the Romans treated the Visigoth’s like dirt. They were starved, sometimes taken into slavery. They ended up revolting, and although the Romans successfully put them down, the peace was uneasy, and culminated in King Alaric of the Visigoths sacking Rome in 410.

   It’s a good cautionary tale from both sides of the immigration debate.

   1. “I will agree there’s a level of immigration that a society can’t handle.”

      I agree too. But since to the best of my knowledge Muslims still comprise substantially less than one percent of the U.S. population, I think we have some slack with regard to them.

      I see Muslims presently as the most convenient “other,” the boogeymen for demagogues to appeal to when scaring us into allowing them to have their authoritarian way with us.

      To return to my original analogy, I’m pretty sure the rate of Irish immigration, in proportion to the population at the time, was a far more severe “threat” to “Real American Culture” in the 1840s and 1850s, than Muslim immigration is today.

      My bottom line is, I’m far more fearful of demagogues who use the embarrassingly transparent tactic of invoking an “other” as boogeymen, than I am of the boogeymen. And I am next most fearful of those who can’t or won’t see through the demagogues’ simple-minded tactics.

      1. For perspective, the historical populations of the United States in the period of high Irish immigration into the United States were, 1830, 12,866.020; 1840, 17,069,453 (+32.7%); 1850, 23,191,876 (+35.9%); 1860, 31,443,321 (+35.5%).

         By contrast, I have just seen a projection that the U.S. population will increase about 30 percent over the next forty years.

         One would have to conclude that compared to the mid-19th century, immigration as an engine for “changing the culture” is not a problem.

         Also, with hindsight, I believe you would find relatively few people today who would say the changes in U.S. culture that did result from mid-19th century immigration, were in any way a negative; quite the opposite of what the (e.g.) Know Nothings were preaching in the 1850s.

         1. My basic message is, if you want to have a debate on immigration levels, we can have that debate. But for the people who are already here, they should be treated with decency. We shouldn’t assume the worst about them.

            1. “We shouldn’t assume the worst about them.”

               I agree. Some of them, I assume, are good people. (Did someone say that, already?)

               But you have to admit that there is a very large faction making successful political hay by causing their base to “assume the worst about them.”

               For example, how about Trumpakov’s proposal for “VOICE, Victims of Immigrant-blah-blah-blah.” Red meat for Trumpniks, while statistics show immigrants — especially illegal immigrants — are one of the lowest crime rate demographics. Create a new federal bureaucracy to solve one of the least of our problems.

               (We gun rights advocates should be sensitive to that, one would think.)

         2. You make some glaring mistakes about immigration, and the subject of Islam.

            Those Irish were from Christian nations. To conflate that with Muslims is incredibly stupid. They not only are not Christian, they are antithetical to Christianity and ALL OTHER RELIGIONS. Have you bothered to read the Quran? It is not simply a religion, it is a political entity, and it is driven to destroy all others. If you haven’t read it, you have no business advocating for it. If you HAVE read it, and still feel the same way, you are an absolute fool.

            1. “Those Irish were from Christian nations.”

               Remember that at the time, Protestants regarded Catholics as “not really Christians” and literally worse than Muslims are regarded today, in terms of theology.

               There still is an undercurrent of that today. Google “Whore of Babylon” and any associated phrases you may stumble over as a result. Also try “pope” AND “Anti-Christ.”

               In 1923 the KKK burned a Catholic Church in a suburb just across the municipal border from Philadelphia, in broad daylight, while the neighbors cheered.

               But going back to the 1840s, again, Bishop “Dagger Jack” (John) Hughes had to form a militia of 10,000 armed Irish immigrants to defend St. Patrick’s Cathedral from Patriotic American mobs in New York City. They threatened to “turn the city into another Moscow” (referring to Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and burning of that city) if any damage was done to a Catholic church.

               In 1854 Philadelphia City became co-terminus with Philadelphia County, to consolidate police and fire services following anti-Catholic riots and destruction of whole neighborhoods in immediately previous years.

               The point of those little histories being, do not delude yourself that the gulf between Protestants and Catholics in the 19th century were merely ecumenical matters involving a few theological quibbles.

               Imagine if 10,000 armed Muslims formed a militia to defend their mosques, today.

   2. Sebastian, you might want to read this article about the Kurds:

      http://www.everyjoe.com/2016/02/01/politics/our-gallant-allies-the-kurds-other-fairy-tales/#1

      1. I don’t notice kurds burning people alive, or beheading them for the cameras. I do notice them fighting the people who are doing that. I get they might not be the badass fighters of Western Legend, but they seem a far sight better than the people who just ran from ISIS (i.e. the Iraqi Army).

5. The political left is trying to turn the USA into the USSR. To hell with them!

6. Sebastian – thanks for the reference to Kim du Toit. Never heard of him before, but he seems to be a good writer.

   I need more good writers and less Twitter in my life.

7. Wait, the SST 9mm case isn’t expensive at all. It’s cheaper than brass. It’s lighter than brass. It will reload 3x-4x more than brass. Plus you can collect it up with a magnet.

8. Besides the absurdity of having to prove that a given bit of ivory was obtained legally (particularly if the object in question — whether it be gun, knife, or even literal furniture or musical instrument — is obviously old), there’s this assumption that obtaining new ivory is necessarily a risk to elephant and rhino populations.

   There’s a good case to be made that the best way to protect animals is to eat them: by allowing for limited hunting of endangered animals, and letting local villagers profit from such hunts (including the eating of meat and selling of ivory, but also keeping the local animal populations under control, thereby limiting damage to crops and loss of human life), the local villagers are both more interested in maintaining the populations of the animals, and coming down heavily on poachers (who are now enemies of the village well-being).

   Thus, if we ban ivory, we could literally be putting animals in danger.

9. “Maybe this is a sign that I’m too fat these days, but I have to agree with Miguel that this line of argument annoys me. If I could carry something the size of a gun that could very successfully help me survive a coronary, I would. But AED’s are a bit heavy, and you need someone to set it up.”

   Zoll wearable defibrillators are being given to patients who otherwise would have to stay in the hospital to await the testing and procedure to implant an internal pacer/defibrillator, and also to wear while the leads “heal in” to the heart tissues.

   https://lifevest.zoll.com/patients

10. On the subject of fitness, I made this comment on Miguel’s site, and felt it appropriate to repeat here as well:

    I have to agree with Miguel on this as well, too. Every so often I come across someone who thinks that guns in general should be banned, and if you can’t fight off any threat, it’s because you’re not man enough to take on all your enemies with bare hands.

    The problem is that not all of us can get that kind of training, and be that fit. Some of us have health problems, and women in particular will NEVER be “manly” enough to fight off a threat. And when that punk may have a knife, a bat, or a gun, or two or three punk friends, it becomes more and more difficult to see how being a “manly man” is going to help out, at all.

    And in the grand scheme of things, why should *I* be the one to accept the rules that some punk wishes to inflect on *me*? I just want to be left alone. I’m not going to pick any fights, and I’m going to try to defuse any argument I get into, but in the end, I’m doing the best I can to mind my own business. If someone is attacking me, it isn’t me who’s violating the rules of civilization; I fail to see why it’s up to me to be prepared to “be a man” and engage in fisticuffs to end the threat!

11. When I first saw the objection to black B-26s, I thought it was silly. But think how much of defensive shooting is reflexive and memory muscle, and it doesn’t seem quite so silly.

    1. If you use B-26s the reflex will be to shoot for the lower abdomen.

Comments are closed.