I know this is in response to the satirical website BabylonBee but it is wonderful.
Didn’t even last as long as Firefly… and there sure as shit ain’t gonna be no movie, neither!https://t.co/hlO7YuZNn5
— Adam Baldwin (@AdamBaldwin) December 24, 2019
Jayne Cobb approves!
Congratulations to Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons on his 2,000th video.
I know how long it took me to write 2,000 blog posts. I can’t imagine all the work that went into creating 2,000 YouTube/Full 30 videos.
I feature a lot of Ian’s Forgotten Weapons videos on this blog because a) they are interesting, b) they are educational, and c) he does a damn good job in putting them together.
You may have noticed in many of Ian’s videos filmed outside that he has quite a collection of historic-looking headgear. He goes through a large box of them in his 2,000th video below.
As for me, I have a few boonies and a ton of giveaway ball caps gathered from the SHOT Show and NRA Annual Meetings with a few fly fishing companies thrown into the mix.
You know you’ve made it when you get invited to do a Riding Shotgun With Charlie!
For those that don’t know, in addition to his GunGrams, Charlie Cook has done a series of YouTube videos where he and a guest from the 2A community drive around and discuss things gun and 2A related.
Charlie and I filmed this episode in Phoenix after the end of the 2019 Gun Rights Policy Conference. Also joining us was Andrew Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation who we gave a ride to the airport.
The Complementary Spouse and I watched the entire video last night. After a few awkward moments when we begin, it was good.
I hope you enjoy it. Many thanks to Charlie for having me on.
I knew that if you didn’t have your rifle perfectly level, it would affect where the bullet would actually impact. That said, I didn’t know much else about it.
This recently released video from the National Shooting Sports Foundation featuring Todd Hodnett of Accuracy 1st does a good job of explaining both the impact of cant and how to account for it when aiming.
As to shooting with the rifle 90 degrees off of center, I had never seen that before. I believe he is correct that it does have tactical applications.
Pennsylvania is fighting to keep #GhostGuns out of the hands of those who should not have them.
— March For Our Lives (@AMarch4OurLives) December 21, 2019
Now the NRA is suing Attorney General @JoshShapiroPA.
We stand with AG Shapiro and a safer PA. https://t.co/r5yQTkvevS
March for Our Lives, the children’s crusade against firearms, has just shown their gullibility and ignorance. If it involves guns, they will believe anything an anti-gun politician spews out.
They have retweeted an absolute lie told by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D-PA). He wants people to have the impression that it was the National Rifle Association that sued him after his autocratic redefinition of what constitutes a firearm. Shapiro knew that throwing the name “NRA”, the term “ghost guns”, and tying it into crime was red meat for your average ignorant anti-gunner.
Look at the first page of the application for an emergency preliminary injunction. That action is being brought by a Pennsylvania FFL, a New Hampshire FFL, a manufacturer and dealer in what are called 80% lowers, and the Firearms Policy Coalition. No where do you see that the NRA is involved in this case. Indeed, if you had attended the Meeting of Members at the 2019 NRA Annual Meeting, you know that that old guard had nothing but disdain for attorneys Josh Prince and Adam Kraut. Don’t forget that Marion Hammer has called Adam “the enemy within”.
Shapiro sent out his original tweet the day after the application was filed. He knew or should have known that the NRA had nothing to do with this case.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has consistently held that unfinished forgings or castings that are “completely solid and un-machined in the fire-control recess area” are not firearms and not subject to the Gun Control Act of 1968. See the attached determinations beginning on page 67 of the application for an injunction. Moreover, BATFE doesn’t even use the term “80% lower” or “80% frame” which is more of a marketing term than anything else.
As Josh Prince notes in his law firm blog, only the Pennsylvania General Assembly has the power to write law and it cannot be delegated. In other words, Shapiro’s “legal opinion” is making law and therefore invalid.
With regard to Shapiro’s claim that he is being sued by “companies that fund the @NRA”, only Polymer 80 exhibited at the most recent NRA Annual Meeting in Indianapolis. Having a booth at a national show which attracts thousands of gun owners is smart business for Polymer 80. While the NRA does gain some marginal revenue, “funding the NRA” is not Polymer 80’s purpose in being there. Just like we are all the “gun lobby”, so, too, we are all “funding the NRA” through our memberships.
Politicians and their PR flacks will say anything to push their position. Sometimes it is true. More often it is either the shading of the truth or an outright lie. I’ll let you decide what Shapiro was trying to do with his tweet.
March for Our Lives’ tweet, on the other hand, is a demonstrable lie. Like naughty children, they should be sent to their room with no TV, no phone, and no Internet to think about the consequences of their lie.
Gov. Ralph Northam (D-VA) was born and raised on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. He was born in Nassawadox which is in Northampton County and was raised on a farm outside of Onancock which is in Accomack County.
According to the most current list provided by the Virginia Citizens Defense League of 2A sanctuary counties and cities, both Northampton and Accomack Counties are now 2A sanctuaries.
Northampton County’s Board of Supervisors adopted their resolution on December 10th. It referred to the protections afforded the right to keep and bear arms in both the US and Virginia Constitutions.
Accomack County’s Board of Supervisors adopted their resolution at their regular meeting on December 18th. It included this whereas:
WHEREAS, the Accomack County Board of Supervisors believes in the rule of law and supports the US Constitution including the Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment. Each member of the Accomack County Board of Supervisors has taken an oath to “support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia”. The Accomack County Board of Supervisors takes their oath of office seriously and actively works to protect all rights guaranteed by both constitutions, including the Second Amendment
According to the local paper, there is a bit of a quibble about whether both Northampton and Accomack are “sanctuaries”. Both their resolutions stated their strong support for the Second Amendment and both urge state legislators not to infringe on the Second Amendment. However, they don’t come out and say they are sanctuaries.
If the sentiments of Northam’s hometown folks are any indication, Thomas Wolfe was correct. You can’t go home again.
I stumbled across this picture today. I know it sure felt like this while waiting for my Form 4 and especially my Form 1s to be approved.
We have all been on websites with pictures asking you to select the boxes with buses or stoplights or cars in order to prove you are not a bot. It is a system called reCAPTCHA. It was meant as an improvement over an earlier system that presented you with fuzzy numbers and letters which you had to type in.
Someone decided to create a new picture just for Virginia politicians and gun control advocates.
Flatlanders like Gov. Ralph Northam (D-VA) just don’t get it.
As someone who has lived in the Appalachians for the majority of my life, I can tell him that folks from Tazewell or Grundy or Wytheville are different from the rest of Virginians. They didn’t descend from the planter class and their families won’t be found in a list of the First Families of Virginia. Instead they are descended from the heavily Scots-Irish migrants who ended up there because they just wanted to be left the hell alone. They didn’t take kindly to being told what to do and they still don’t.
People in the mountains are a tolerant people until they are not. This is something the Virginia Democrats bought and paid for by Michael Bloomberg should keep in mind. I hope and pray that they do. Because if they don’t, all hell is going to break loose. And it won’t be pretty.
Jeet Heer is the National Affairs Correspondent for The Nation magazine. He just published an article in The Nation that confirms he is both a fool and a knave.
Heer has called for mass street protests because he feels that Congressional Democrats are being too conservative with impeachment. He calls for a “people’s impeachment”.
Unleashing the power of mass protest to force resignation is rare in America but common elsewhere. Indeed, we seem to be living in an age when it’s not unusual for street protesters to topple governments. From South Korea to Spain to Iceland to Finland, street protests have played a key role in bringing down despised heads of government.
The reason such mass protests to force a resignation are rare in the United States is because we have seen the folly of a civil war.
Heer is critical of impeachment as he thinks it is too “centrist” and too legalistic.
In the words of Pelosi and Gopnik, we once again hear the yearning for a centrist restoration. Trump, in this worldview, is a horrific anomaly in an otherwise well-functioning system. After you get rid of him—or even just give him a symbolic rebuke in the form of impeachment—the system will return to normal. The hope is that once Trump is gone, the old order will rise again, with Democrats and Republicans joining hands in bipartisan comity.
He goes on to say:
Could a people’s impeachment achieve the level of success of the Puerto Rico protests? This is unlikely, given that removal by the Senate would require 67 votes. Further, the anti-Trump resistance isn’t yet as radicalized as Puerto Rico was in the summer of 2017.
Puerto Rico should be treated as a benchmark for the best possible outcome. But even if a people’s impeachment falls short of forcing Trump’s resignation, it still has a crucial role to play in mobilizing the population to defend democracy.
(Author Dana) Fisher says the hallmark of the resistance to date is a commitment to peaceful protest. But she adds that this could change, given that a younger cohort of protesters is being radicalized. She speculates that if Trump is reelected, we could see a wave of truly disruptive protests.
You know my thoughts on a hot civil war. They are something only a fool would want because life becomes nasty, brutish, and short to paraphrase Thomas Hobbes.
It is easy for Heer to call for the protests that lead to a hot civil war. After all he is a Canadian and would just go back across the border to escape the violence. The rest of us would not be so lucky.
Lest he need a reminder, Rule 303 (or a modern equivalent) will always trump a concrete milkshake. I hope and pray we never see Rule 303 put into action.
Getting books for Christmas was a tradition in my family. It is not surprising when your Mom was first an English teacher and then a school librarian.
I have compiled a list of books for your perusal. I have read most of the books myself. Those that I haven’t are either too new or are new books from authors I trust and respect.
First up is a new book on handgun hunting by my fellow Polite Society Podcast co-host Kat Ainsworth. I have it on order and am anxious to start reading it. Kat’s work can be found in USCCA Concealed Carry Magazine, Concealed Carry Handguns, Range 365, Pew Pew Tactical, SHOT Business, and Shooting Illustrated.
Another new books worthy of consideration is by Nikki Goeser. Stalked And Defenseless: How Gun Control Helped My Stalker Murder My Husband in Front of Me details how Tennessee’s legislatively mandated gun free zones allowed a demented stalker to kill her husband. Because Nikki obeyed the law and locked her carry gun in her car, she was left defenseless when this evil person murdered her husband.
Jim Curtis aka Old NFO is a friend, blogger, and novelist. I just finished the finale of his The Grey Man series, The Grey Man – Sunset. It brings to a conclusion the exploits of John Cronin and his family and friends as they fight the drug cartels and other evil doers in west Texas. Cronin is a rancher, a (retired) captain with the Pecos County Sheriff’s Department, an ex-DEA agent, and a Vietnam vet who served on 5th Special Forces A-Teams. He is also known to be a stone-cold killer of those that deserved it. I suggest starting from the beginning of his series and working your way through all of them.
Moving on, my next suggestion is actually a text book by law professors Randy Barnett and Josh Blackman. That said, An Introduction to Constitutional Law: 100 Supreme Court Cases Everyone Should Know, is very readable. It starts with the early cases such as Marbury v Madison and works its way forward. Since our common law is built heavily on precedent, knowing how earlier decisions paved the way for later decisions is critical if you want to understand it. The book also comes with a code that allows access to the video series that goes along with the book. Fortunately, unlike most law books, the price of this book isn’t a killer.
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