April 13, 2018 Newsletter by Jeff Pittman
The March
The “student-led” “March for Our Lives” groups which were formed after the Feb. 14 school shooting in Florida had a bunch of concurrent marches across the country on March 14. But somehow the permit for the march was issued by the D.C. Metropolitan Police in response to an application received MONTHS prior to the march. In other words, it was pre-planned.
Litigation & AG Opinion
- “Do not think of repealing the Second Amendment” [Miami Herald]
Nutball US District Judge William Young dismissed a lawsuit challenging Massachusetts’ 20-year-old ban on so-called “assault weapons” and full capacity magazines, saying they are military firearms that fall beyond the reach of the Second Amendment right to “bear arms.”
Apparently Judge Young has never read the Second Amendment or previous SCOTUS cases, such as Miller.
US District Judge Timothy S. Hillman has ruled that a lawsuit accusing Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey of improperly tightening the state’s strict “evil weapons” ban on her own can move forward, denying the state’s motion to dismiss.
Markesan, Wisconsin high school principal John Koopman has been sued on First Amendment grounds after preventing a freshman student from wearing his pro-gun T-Shirts. It’s about dang time.
A Mississippi man released from a mental hospital commitment had his guns returned by Pascagoula Police. Now he’s in trouble with the feds for possessing weapons after being committed to a mental institution.
MS AG Opinion on Government Employment Policies Relating to Employees Carrying
(Note that our “Democrat/hunter” AG reveals his true colors with the statement that although not requested, “we addressed the application of, and OBVIOUS NEED FOR, employment policies relating to open carry…”)
Also note that while such policies may result in discipline of a violating EMPLOYEE, they do not create a crime nor apply to non-employees.
Trump Blows Appellate Court Nomination
- “Democrats praise Trump nominee for 9th Circuit” [The Washington Times]
Troops
You’ve seen the news that federalized Army and Air Guard personnel are being deployed to our southern border to find and catch cross-border drug traffickers, illegal gun traffickers, and illegal immigrants. No word on whether the troops will actually be armed.
Comment Period Opens on Proposed Bump Stock Ban
- “Comment Period Opens On Proposed Bump Stock Ban” [No Lawyers, Only Guns and Money]
- “Bump Stock Regulation Comment Period Is Now Open” [The Truth About Guns]
Legislation
A group of Republican state legislators in South Carolina introduced a bill last week that would allow the state to secede from the United States if the federal government began to seize legally purchased firearms in the state.
It seems like that’s been tried before…
NICS Checks Record
The March 2018 (unadjusted) number of National Instant Check System background checks hit an all-time record of 2,767,699, which is 245,000 more than the 2016 previous all-time record of 2,523,265.
YouTube
We note that YouTube, which has recently cracked down on gun videos depicting legal, responsible uses, it continues to allow some 300,000 videos on how to make bombs. We also note that even though California has strict gun control, “assault weapon” bans, background checks for ammunition, and that YouTube’s campus is a great big gun free zone, it still got shot up last week. By one of its own employees, a far-left liberal weirdo Muslim vegan animal rights aberrant from Iran, not an OFWG redneck conservative gun nut from Dixie.
Enemies
“You do not have the right to bear bullets.” — US Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) at a news conference at the Pembroke Pines Police Department
We note that so many leftists claim that “nobody wants to take your guns,” but a new Quinnipiac poll shows that 33% of Democrats and 35% of black respondents polled favored repealing the Second Amendment.
The Media — how it reported Remington.
Criminal Justice Aide for Corrupt Mayor of NYC, Bill De Blasio (D), Arrested for 2 Counts of Illegal Weapons Possession. Former crime prevention and criminal justice aide, and reportedly the daughter of a judge.
Mills Fleet Farm has 37 locations in Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and last month the retailer quietly stopped advertising some semi-automatic rifles and their accessories, but company officials said they will still sell them. Fleet Farm has also instituted a “no sale” policy for firearms until the store confirms a “proceed” from the NICS system, even if the statutory 3 days have elapsed after a “delay.”
Singers Taylor Swift and Jason Aldean (who wears the same jewelry as Swift) have jumped on the gun control bandwagon.
Citigroup update. I have terminated my account and have already started using my replacement card. Also, 16 Republican congressmen (none from MS) are asking the General Services Administration (GSA) to reevaluate a $700 billion government contract with Citibank as a result of the the company’s “anti-Second Amendment policies.” Durn right.
We also have a report that Bank of America (which issues Bass Pro Shops branded MasterCards), is pursuing a similar route by no longer lending money to companies that manufacture evil black rifles for civilian sale, saying that it would drop current loan-customers Vista Outdoors, Remington and Sturm Ruger, and blackball any other manufacturer of what they’re now calling “military style” weapons. I have sent BPS a message objecting to their card arrangement with BOA and asking that they broker a new deal with a better bank. You should also particularly note that ALL firearms are or were, “military style” weapons. Muzzleloaders, revolvers, autopistols, single shots, bolt rifles, semiautos, whatever.
New York based Amalgamated Bank has reportedly implemented similar lending and funding restrictions.
The North Carolina Council of Churches, a multi-denominational (including some non-Christian faiths) group, is planning to put up a bunch of anti-gun billboards along I-40/85, because they haven’t really studied the Bible.
Dept. of Idiocy
Dr. John Crichton, the new chairman of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland, wants the sale of pointed kitchen knives to be banned to help reduce the number of fatal stabbings.
You can’t make this up.
(Since the British people allowed their various King Georges to disarm them, the violent crime rate has gone up and now London’s murder rate has surpassed that of New York City. In 2017 there were 37,000 knife attacks in England and Wales. No report on any successful defenses to any of the attacks.)
How “subjects” think:
“She handles all three guns with, uh, a level of skill that I would only have expected to have seen someone in the military possess. There’s something alarming about seeing someone so young have such capabilities, and alarming about seeing her father encourage such things.” — British photographer Sharif Hamza
Friends
More YouTube alternatives for gun videos.
I Am The Majority. He ain’t runnin, but I’d vote for him.
Mayor Nancy Vaughn of Greensboro, NC announced after the Parkland murders that she would seek to end the Greensboro Gun and Knife Show held semi-annually at the Greensboro Coliseum. The Greensboro City Council was in agreement, but didn’t have the authority to do that. So they invited citizens to make their voices heard. And the majority showed up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=NIwf3d7hP9g
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has asked US Attorney General Jeff Sessions to “withhold funds from any local or state government that adopts policies that infringe on the right of citizens to keep and bear arms.”
“I WILL NOT sing our National Anthem at a place that seeks to strip me of my second amendment rights!!!”
Trouble In Paradise
Boys To Men. Ladies, Especially Moms: Pay Attention.
- A letter to the boys & young men of America. [J. Ishiro Finney]
Leadership
- Theodore Roosevelt Jr. [Defense Training International]
The Only Ones
Douglas Cioni, an 18-year veteran of the Woodbridge, NJ, Police Department, was unloading his gun to clean it last week when he shot himself in the hand.
Detroit police officer Jerold Blanding was charged this week with three counts of possession of a firearm while under the influence, eight counts of resisting and obstructing police and felony firearms violations at the scene of a vehicle accident involving an acquaintance of Blanding. The incident occurred later on the same day that Blanding had been placed on restricted duty (no gun status) while under investigation for a fatal police shooting.
A BATFE Office of the Inspector General audit report found that 28 guns were either lost by or stolen from (or by) ATF agents over the course of three years, and that there were “several significant deficiencies related to tracking and inventory of ammunition. For example, ammunition tracking records were understated by almost 31,000 rounds at the 13 sites we audited.” But the ATF has 275 offices, and if you extrapolate the findings it adds up to about 650,000 missing rounds. Explosives were also not correctly inventoried in some offices and may be lost or stolen as well. We understand that’s better than it used to be. But they still “lost” 10 guns and perhaps 200,000 rounds of ammo a year. I’ve never lost a gun (had one stolen, and it was reported to police within hours) or more than a couple of loaded rounds in 50 years. What about you?
South Carolina officials have decided not to prosecute US Rep. Ralph Norman (R) after a meeting with constituents where the lawmaker produced his loaded revolver and set it on the table to make a pro-gun point. We also note silence regarding MS State Rep. Charles Young Jr.’s (D) display of an open, unloaded handgun to make an anti-gun point while at the podium on the MS House floor earlier this year. One wonders if the LEO community would be so understanding of any of us ordinary people when it comes to brandishing guns in crowds. Actually, I don’t wonder.
In Detroit, some undercover cops posing as drug dealers met up with some other undercover cops posing as drug buyers, whereupon a Keystone Cops fight broke out as they attempted to arrest each other. Or maybe they really are drug dealers and buyers using their police jobs as cover for their drug dealing.
Mass Shootings
In 2014, Purdue students analyzed FBI active shooter data from past mass shootings and created a detailed computer simulation model that replicates a school assaulted by an active shooter. The study concluded that arming school personnel and locking doors can slow down a shooter and possibly prevent killings.
Duh.
The Millcreek Township School District in Erie County, PA, recently distributed 16-inch miniature souvenir wooden baseball bats to each of its 500 or so teachers in case of an active shooter. That might work if you have a miniature souvenir shooter.
Meanwhile this week the Broward County School District (FL), where the February school massacre occurred, voted against participating in the Coach Aaron Feis Guardian Program. The program, named after a coach who died in the massacre, was recently enacted by the state legislature and allows school systems to authorize some volunteer, trained staff at the schools to carry defensive firearms on campus for protection of the staff and students. The only conclusion we can deduce from that is that the Broward County School District Board members actually prefer massacres of their faculty, staff and students, because that is literally the choice they made. The board members instead want someone to give them more money to pay other people to do what the board refuses to do today. Perhaps the members should be arrested and charged with accessory to murder. But see the item* under “Critical Mistakes” below.
DGUs
Attempted armed robber shot by volunteer church security guard. Guard also shot.
“They pepper sprayed the [attacking] dog. They beat it with a hammer. Somebody was screaming to shoot it…”
Drones Will Now Be Shot Down at Texas NASCAR Events
5 Critical Mistakes Made By Defensive Gun Owners
- 5 Critical Mistakes Made By Defensive Gun Owners [The Daily Caller]
*43-year-old Sean Simpson, a chemistry teacher at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where the massacre occurred in February, was arrested after he left a loaded gun in a public restroom at a pier, where a drunk homeless man picked it up and fired it, causing no injuries. Simpson is charged with failing to safely store his weapon. Rule 5. Maintain control of your weapon.
Man Mistakenly Kills Son
A 47-year-old Oklahoma father shot and killed his 13-year-old son, who was driving what the man thought was a stolen family vehicle.
Rule 4. Be sure of your target, and what’s beyond it.
Training
“A local list member asked for my views on training mandates for carry permits. As many of you might have predicted, the gist of my reply was that, while I recommend as much realistic, voluntary training as one can afford, on an individual basis, statistically, there is no evidence to back a training mandate.” — Stephen P. Wenger
Bomb and Knife Class for Citizens at a Baptist Church in Ohio
Recalls
Ruger has recalled Mark IV .22 pistols (including the 22/45) made before June 1, 2017. They have a potential to discharge unintentionally. This does not apply to the Ruger Mark I, II, or III line of pistols.
3-Mile Record Shot
Impressive, But I Bet She Can’t Board A Plane.
(77)
Patriots Day April 19
CELEBRATE PATRIOTS DAY, APRIL 19th
By E. James Adkins
We don’t celebrate the 19th of April anymore. It was never celebrated in a big monumental way, but we once celebrated that day.
“Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.”
— so wrote Longfellow in his poem that begins:
“Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,”
Revere and others went forth on the night of April 18, 1775 with the alarm, “The redcoats are coming!” They rode all through the night.
“It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
It was two by the village clock
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.”
Why was it so immediately important, on the night of April 18, 1775, for all of the people to know that the “redcoats are coming?”
It was the practice in our colonial period for each village to have a “common” or “village green” that was used for public gatherings. The most significant use of the “common” was as a mustering point and drill field for the village militia, “every able bodied man between the ages of 16 and 60 years.” The militia was trained (as they termed it, “disciplined” and “well regulated”) in the use of arms, here at the village green. The militia provided protection for individuals and property of the village against all threats. A man would spend some time in the “gaol” if he missed a militia call. The militia, each man, was required to keep and bear his own arms. It was common for the militia to maintain a community armory for the storage of shot, powder, flint, additional small arms and any heavy arms that it might afford. Individuals could draw from these supplies as needed, as well as acquiring their own private supplies.
On the night of April 18, 1775, Governor Gage (British Governor of fortress Boston) ordered British “redcoats” to march to the many surrounding villages, to seize and destroy all stores of munitions and to arrest the country leaders, the “arch-conspirators.”
British Major Pitcairn led the march into the countryside. The prime objective was to still the voice of the people, disarm them and make them more servile. Rebellion must stop, they said. So, Revere took to horse to give the alarm: “To arms, to arms, the redcoats are coming!”
Early on the morning of the 19th of April, 1775, Major Pitcairn’s “redcoats” arrived at Lexington and met Captain John Parker’s company of colonial militia drawn-up on the meeting house green.
“By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Hence once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.”
— so wrote Emerson in 1837.
Some colonials were wounded and some were killed. Resistance to the larger British force proved futile. Pitcairn’s return march to Boston became a humiliating rout as our colonial militiamen, Minutemen and individual countrymen harassed the British column from behind stone walls, rocks and trees, every step of the way.
The shot heard round the world, the first shot in our fight for independence from King George’s slavery, was fired to protect and defend the natural right of men to protect themselves, to keep and bear arms for the purpose of preserving liberty. This right to keep and bear arms was codified on the 15th of December 1791 when it became the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.
We don’t celebrate the 19th of April anymore. Perhaps we should.
“That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free.”
— Emerson, 1837
The redcoats are coming!
Products
Buy any Crimson Trace laser sight and get a $159 CMR-201 Rail Master® Universal Red Laser Sight FREE, through April 30. Includes free batteries for life for both sights. Kind of a no-brainer.
AR500 Armor has some buy one, get one free body armor packages.
AR-15 lock, perhaps good for truck guns
Alliant Powder has released improved Red Dot powder, which burns significantly cleaner and offers better flow characteristics with the same performance as the original.
Do you like a barrel cleaning jag that fits really well? Check out http://www.rifledjag.com/. They have jags with rifling engraved on them to “align and mirror match the specific caliber rifling for a better fit. They will custom make them for your bore if needed.
The new Lee Auto Breech Lock Pro automatic progressive loading machine for pistol-length cartridges retails for just $150. Available this month.
Side-by-Side-by-Side, a kugeldrilling.
Leupold’s new QRW2 and PRW2 scope rings offer universal cross-slot compatibility to fit both Weaver and Picatinny rails. The QRW2 line is no-tools quick detachable while the PRW2 is conventional. Various height and finish options. Lifetime warranty.
Vista Outdoors company Blackhawk has stopped making suppressors, just a year and a half after they were announced.
Quote of the Week
“When I see a mentally disturbed street person or a parent with a sick child or someone who has lost their job or a wounded warrior returning from Afghanistan or a cancer patient fighting for their lives, my complaints seem so insignificant as to be nonexistent.” — Charlie Daniels
