The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
Can’t stop the signal:
I the Golden State, the automatic fire would be illegal, as would being able to detach a >10 rd magazine without disassembling the action. But the speed load would be legal, even with a bigger magazine if it were permanently attached.
I’ve been waiting for this shoe to drop. Russia has a RKBA movement that NRA has been involved with for several years. I met and spoke briefly with a representative from their organization at the NRA convention in St. Louis before Trump was even a thing. Somewhere I have her business card but I can’t seem to find it. Am I part of the conspiracy too now?
Now, this Russian RKBA group is not an opposition group. That’s not allowed in Russia. This group has the blessing of the Kremlin. This is not a new thing. NRA has been working with this group for years. NRA has always been willing to work with foreign RKBA movements and to help promote the shooting sports in other countries.
The common interests do go farther than that. Russia is an opponent of the UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), and when it comes to ATT, allies are scarce. It’s basically the Russians and Chinese who don’t want it. The sanctions placed on Russia are also indirectly an RKBA issue, since a lot of our cheap surplus comes from Russia. Now, I am fine with the sanctions as long as their true purpose is to act as a legitimate instrument of US foreign policy and not just a back handed way to screw American gun owners. I never got the impression that Obama’s sanctions were targeting us directly. I would not like to see NRA take a position on the sanctions, even if they interfere with imports of firearms and ammunition. To me that’s a foreign policy issue and a legitimate prerogative of the President and Congress. In other words, not a gun issue, even if we’re indirectly affected.
There’s a lot of smoke here, but I’m not sure there’s fire. I might feel differently if I haven’t been seeing Russian nationals at NRA long before Trump came along, and before Putin started getting frisky in Ukraine and the Middle East.
A few years ago, if you had said “The CIA is using my TV to spy on me,” you probably would have been sent to the loony bin for observation. But thanks to Wikileaks, we know it’s true! The Internet loves a good conspiracy theory, so I’ll throw one out there:
Also because of Wikileaks, we now know the intelligence community has the ability to hack systems and leave a Russian or Chinese “signature” on an attack. I’m thinking this probably just involves leaving some Russian or Chinese language root kit laying around, but maybe it’s more sophisticated than that. I haven’t read the documents first hand yet.
It was always in Barack Obama’s personal best interests for Hillary Clinton to not be the next President of the United States. Had Hillary won, Obama would have been forced to take a back seat, and the Clintons would then be firmly at the helm of the party. If Obama was to retain control of the Democratic Party, Hillary had to lose. But Obama couldn’t be seen to be deliberately sabotaging her campaign. So what’s the conspiracy theory? The whole “Russians! Under My Bed!” scare is a cover. Obama used Weeping Angel to sabotage Hillary’s campaign and had the intel community leave evidence to ensure it would get blamed on the Russians. Now his plants in the intel community are using the cover to sabotage Trump, and hopefully draw attention away from the hit on Hillary. Crazy? Absolutely! But so was the idea that the CIA would use people’s TVs to spy on them a decade ago.
I’m just messing around here, but at this point it wouldn’t surprise me. How long before people are putting on tin foil hats because it really does keep the CIA from reading your thoughts?
UPDATE: Along the same lines, this is the beginning of the end for encryption as we currently know it.
A few readers commented on the new Concealed Carry graphic I’m using. I try to use graphics because apparently it makes your site more appealing, even though most sites that use them either have expensive stock photo accounts, or flagrantly violate other people’s copyrights. I don’t like to do either. No copyright issue with this one, because it’s me, taken about 14 years ago not long after I purchased a Glock 19 and a halfway decent holster. I was also an early adopter of Smart Phones, and at the time used a Palm Treo 270.
I’ve done a lot of dumb things over the years carry wise. The first time I ever carried in public, sometime around August of 2002, I was carrying a Bersa Thunder 380 in an Uncle Mike’s sausage sack. That’s what I had. I got the Glock I carry today a few months later, and then started experimenting with better holsters.
But one thing I did, really up until the iPhone 6 behemoth, is carry my cell phone at 2:00 and pistol at 4:00 strong side. Since the iPhone 6, I found a pair of pants and a jacket that has a cell phone pocket, and I use that. The iPhone 6 is too large to comfortably wear on a belt clip.
My placement of the cell phone relative to the firearm would horrify a lot of instructors, but I’m a firm believer that everything with carry is a compromise. If I had to follow best carry practices all the time, I wouldn’t bother with it, and I’m pretty sure most other people would not either. I’ll make tradeoffs provided those tradeoffs aren’t dangerous.
I’m willing to be convinced carrying a cell phone on a belt clip strong side near a gun is a bad idea, especially now that the phones are huge and I have other options. What does the Internets collectively think? Discuss.
Today is the “Day Without Women” protest. I’ve long written in favor of smart activist tactics, and written against dumb ones. This has had the side effect of limiting my audience, because sometimes dumb activist tactics are very self-satisfying. Perhaps a feeling of righteousness and being part of something you think is contributing something has value of its own? Perhaps that is something I should consider, but it’s just never been my drug. If gun owners were mounting a similar “Day Without Gun Owners,” I’d call it out for useless activism that serves no purpose other than the contribute to activism fatigue (most people have lives to live).
Mom’s Demand is taking part in the Day Without Women, and why shouldn’t they? In fact, if they want to make it the year without women, please do. Decade? Century? I would strongly encourage it! Keep your people basking in that self-satisfied nothing, Shannon Watts. Don’t you ever change.
This time in South Dakota. A bill is now on the Governor’s desk. This would be the 14th state to adopt Constitutional Carry. Meanwhile Senator Cornyn has introduced the Senate Bill S.446, “Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017” This bill also recognizes the rights of citizens from states like Vermont that do not issue permits. I’m glad this is being pushed, because I’ve been of the opinion that our opponents need to get it worse than they would have if they had just conceded to this years ago when the only thing on the table was the recognition of permits.
Pennsylvania will not be a leader in the Constitutional Carry movement. Unfortunately, the only state, so far, that has passed Constitutional Carry which has a major urban center is Arizona. I don’t notice that sky is falling in Phoenix, but it will probably take another populous state like Florida or Texas before our politicians run out of excuses for not supporting it.
There’s not much gun news, so I’ll give you a topic. One thing that doesn’t make sense to me about the Russian Agent theory of Trump is that the greatest geopolitical threat to Russia faces is cheap oil and gas. Oil and gas revenues represent 60% Russian exports, and 30% of its entire Gross Domestic Product. About 50% of the budget for the Russian government comes from state-owned oil and gas revenues. American Frackers are arguably a greater threat to Putin than the US military.
So if Putin were going to put a Manchurian Candidate in the White House, why would his man be generally supportive of American energy? Russia has put a lot of effort into anti-fracking propaganda in the United States. It would seem to me a top priority of a Russian stooge in the White House would be to halt pipeline construction and to use the EPA as a weapon to make hydraulic fracturing as expensive and unprofitable as possible.
Joe Huffman will be appearing on a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” thread tomorrow at 11AM alongside Maj Toure of Black Guns Matter. We’ve long needed an urbanized gun rights movement, so I think this should prove to be an interesting forum. The WaPo reported this weekend, “But that overall decline [in gun sales] has been accompanied by some unusual growth: Gun clubs and shops that cater to black and LGBT clients say there has been an uptick in interest in firearms since November among those who fear that racial and gender-based violence could increase during Donald Trump’s presidency.”
Arming up in the face of uncertainly is very deeply engrained in the American experience, much to the chagrin of people who wish it wasn’t so.
New York City’s News 4 took a trip down to the wild’s of Pennsylvania to meet themselves from genuine militia members (autoplay warning). The militia scene is not my scene, but if a bunch of people want to go out into the woods on the weekends and practice room clearing, it’s no skin off my back. I actually think News 4 manage to do a pretty fair job of covering the issue. There’s not much whipping up hysteria, and they seem genuinely interested in letting them tell their story. They don’t even sensationalize the fact that a lot of them don’t want to be identified. Minds can imagine that would be for some nefarious purpose, when the real issue is probably they don’t want their employers and co-workers to know they get together with their shooting buddies and play army on the weekends.
Those interested in learning more about the militia movement should start with Prof. Robert’s Churchill’s “The Origins of the Militia Movement.“
Bloomberg’s propaganda media outlet “The Trace” is busy promoting the idea that cars are not gun safes again. The great irony in this is that Bloomberg’s organizations also promote laws that create a patchwork of restrictions on taking guns into places like post office’s, restaurants, parks, public transit, etc. You know what people do when as part of their daily errands have to go to one of these places? Yep, you guessed it: leave their guns in their cars. You might wish people would just leave them at home, but that’s not going to happen. You might wish that the law banned people from carrying firearms outside the home entirely, but now all but five or so states allow most law-abiding people to do so, and that’s not going to change. Gun free zones encourage people to leave guns in cars. If Bloomberg’s organizations feel this is a real problem, they would end their opposition to measures that encourages people to keep their firearms where it is least likely to be stolen: on their persons.
