Month: December 2021

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Pay To Play Sheriff Indicted

December 16, 2021 by 4 Comments

I wrote about Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith last year and how big donors were rewarded with CCW permits. There were a number of indictments including that of a captain in the Santa Clara Sheriff’s Office. However, Sheriff Smith herself was never charged. That has changed.

Yesterday, a civil grand jury in Santa Clara County returns seven indictments against Sheriff Smith. This is the California equivalent of an impeachment proceeding for a local official. She must appear in court to answer the indictments. If she wishes to contest them, a trial will be held. However, the only penalty she will face if found guilty is removal from office.

As per custom, the local DA has recused himself from the case. Taking his place will be the infamous Soros-sponsored San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin who will handle the prosecution. Boudin is not fan of law enforcement.

KRON reports the charges against Smith as follows:

  • Count 1: Illegally issuing concealed carry weapon permits (CCW) to VIP’s
  • Count 2: Failing to properly investigate whether non-VIP’s should receive CCW permits
  • Count 3: Keeping non-VIP CCW applications pending indefinitely
  • Count 4: Illegally accepting suite tickets, food, and drinks at Sharks game
  • Count 5: Failing to report Sharks game gifts on financial documents
  • Count 6: Committing perjury by failing to disclose Sharks game gifts
  • Count 7: Failing to cooperate with internal affairs investigation surrounding treatment of Andrew Hogan

Note that Counts 1 to 3 all involve the issuance of concealed carry permits. Her behavior makes the case that may-issue concealed carry permits and their issuance are ripe for corruption. As reported last year, if you were a big donor to Sheriff Smith, you had a 79% chance of getting your permit. If, however, you did not contribute to her campaign, you success rate was a mere 5.5%. While this is better than San Francisco, it is still abysmal.

Sheriff Smith has been in office since December 1998. While California sheriff’s elections are officially non-partisan, it is reported that she is a Republican.

Under California law, even if she is booted from office, Smith would not lose her pension. Public officials can only lose their pension benefits if convicted of a felony and only from the date of the commission of the felony. A rough estimate of her pension is $266,000 annually based upon her last reported salary of $296,000. As I said this is a rough estimate and her actual retirement pay is probably considerably more. Other than avoiding the public shame of being removed from office, she has nothing really to lose by continuing in office. That said, if I were 69 years old like her, I’d have already retired.

UPDATE: NBC Bay Area has more on the case with Santa Clara County DA Jeff Rosen who has recused himself from the case.

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Promoting Marksmanship

December 15, 2021 by

Sweden in 1941 had Nazi-occupied Norway on one side, Nazi-allied (through mutual hatred of the Soviet Union) Finland on the other, and Nazi Germany itself across the Baltic Sea. It was hard being a neutral nation in the midst of all of that. Like the Swiss, the Swedes believed in armed neutrality.

The 1941 Swedish propaganda poster below is promoting marksmanship. The wording translates as “shooting skills increase the defense force.” Both the civilian and the soldier are firing what appears to be a Model 96 Swedish Mauser.

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Comment Of The Day

December 14, 2021 by 1 Comment

The comment of the day comes from Jon Caldara. He is the president of the Colorado-based Independence Institute. His comment came in reference to the calls to ban personally made firearms and the ignorance of those pushing it.

My very favorite social media meme is a picture of a car’s manual-transmission gear shift. It reads, “millennial anti-theft device.”

Wouldn’t it be weird if people who’ve never driven a stick shift tried to outlaw them? Well, that’s the anti-gun movement.

Caldara’s comment is very astute and is totally on the mark.

For those that don’t know, Caldara is the one who sued the People’s Republic of Boulder when they tried to ban possession of certain semi-automatic rifles.

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You Would Not Have Seen This In 2018

December 11, 2021 by 7 Comments

I received a press release earlier this week from Roy Hill of Brownells. Reading through it I was struck that this was not something you would have seen in earlier times. Bear in mind that Pete Brownell served as president of the NRA from May 2017 until May 2018 and was an officer and member of the board prior to that.

The release was about a donation made by Brownells to the Firearms Policy Coalition.

Brownells is proud to announce it has become a Benefactor Member of the Firearms Policy Coalition Constitution Alliance.

Brownells joins other well-known firearms industry companies such as Daniel Defense and Silencer Shop to stand with the Firearms Policy Coalition in defense and support of constitutionally-guaranteed Second Amendment rights for all Americans.

Founded in 2015, the FPC’s main mission is to protect and defend constitutional rights—especially the right to keep and bear arms— often by filing lawsuits against egregious anti-gun-rights laws and regulations.

Recently, FPC filed a lawsuit challenging the unconstitutional New Jersey restrictions and local practices that prevent its residents from exercising their right to carry loaded handguns in public for self-defense. Additionally, FPC has recently filed lawsuits in Nevada, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Illinois, and Tennessee.

“FPC has stood in the Breach to defend our 2A rights for years. They have stacked up an impressive list of legal wins that keeps the individual right to bear arms alive in America,” said Brownells Chairman Pete Brownell.  “Now is the time to double down in supporting our Second Amendment Rights by supporting FPC.”

“It is an honor to have earned the support of Pete Brownell and the Brownells family,” said FPC president Brandon Combs. “Brownells is not only a world-class supplier of constitutionally protected products, it is an institution in our culture. Because of the generous support of our individual FPC Grassroots Army members and growing family of Constitution Alliance benefactors, like our friends at Brownells, our FPC Team is able to aggressively address important issues and protect individuals’ rights, freedoms, and property without hesitation. FPC will proudly continue to Fight Forward for the People and their rights, liberty, and property.”

So far in 2021, Brownells has donated around $175,000 to the FPC.

As I see it, the move by Brownells is an indication of two things. First, it is a testimony to how far the FPC has come in a short time. Second, and what really struck me, is that Brownells which has a long history with the NRA has chosen to send their money elsewhere.

Perhaps I’m mistaken but I see this as a way for Brownells to continue their support for the Second Amendment while distancing themselves from the NRA and all of its self-inflicted problems.

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Congratulations To Cam Edwards

December 10, 2021 by 1 Comment

The Second Amendment Foundation announced earlier this week that Cam Edwards was awarded the 2021 Ray Carter Blogger of the Year Award. Congratulations to Cam on winning this award.

From the announcement:

The “Blogger of the Year” award honors the memory of Ray Carter, a lifelong gun rights activist in Washington State whose final years were spent working for SAF in its Bellevue, Washington national headquarters. Carter is remembered as “an activist’s activist” by SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, and one of the founders of “Blogorado,” an annual gathering of pro-gun bloggers in Colorado. Ray passed in May 2016 following a long battle with cancer, but he never gave up fighting in defense of the Second Amendment.

“Ray would have been delighted to see this award go to Cam Edwards,” Gottlieb observed. “Cam’s background and breadth of knowledge about Second Amendment issues makes him a superb writer and blogger. He knows the subject and he knows his audience, and he’s never backed away from the gun rights battle.”

“I am incredibly honored to receive the Ray Carter Blogger of the Year award,” Edwards said. “As someone who started out as a broadcaster to be recognized for my blogging and writing is really an honor. It really means a lot to me. I know I am in really good company with my colleagues.

Previous winners of the Ray Carter Blogger of the Year Award include Paul Lathrop of Polite Society Podcast (2016), Rob Morse of the Slow Facts Blog (2018), Charlie Cook of Riding Shotgun with Charlie (2019), and Rev. Kenn Blanchard of Black Man with a Gun (2020). Without engaging in too much self-promotion, I, too, am a previous winner. I was greatly honored to win this award in 2017.

I can say I was lucky enough to have met Ray aka Gay Cynic in person though not at a “Blogorado”. Dave Workman has more about Ray and the origins of the award here.

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A Day That Will Live In Infamy Plus 80 Years

December 7, 2021 by 2 Comments

It is hard to believe that it has been 80 years since the attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy on Pearl Harbor. For my parent’s generation, it was something that they lived in real time. They heard about it on the radio or in extra editions of their local newspaper. My dad had already been in the Army for almost a year, my mom was working for the New York City office of the Lend-Lease Program, and my Uncle John would skip school the next day to enlist in the Navy.

Those who were in the military at Pearl Harbor that day are now in their late 90s at the very least. In other words, there are very few of them left. The Pearl Harbor Survivors Association stopped their Hawaii reunions 15 years ago due to the aging of their members. They officially disbanded in 2011. It has been succeeded by the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors. Even still, if you look at the pictures of their members, they are not youngsters.

A quick search of the Internet will allow you to find many, many propaganda posters from that era such as the one above. My favorite that I first posted in 2013 is the one below. Not only does it play on words but it emphasizes the total national commitment that was required to win World War Two. Notice that the knitting needles are arranged in a V for Victory.

remember Pearl Harbor - PURL HARDER". Promoting Civilian Knitting for War Production, New York City WPA War Service, 1942. : r/PropagandaPosters

It was done by the New York City office of the War Production Board to promote civilian knitting for war production.

My point in remembering the Pearl Harbor attack every year is that we should never forget our history. I fear that both our civilian and military leadership has forgotten many of the lessons that Pearl Harbor taught us and we will be caught unawares again.

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Would This Be Considered Baiting Bears?

December 6, 2021 by 1 Comment

Imagine this. You just shot your first deer. Not only is it your first buck but it is your very first time deer hunting. Then out of nowhere a bear appears and starts munching on your deer. That one bear then becomes four bears as three more arrive.

Sounds like a tall tale, doesn’t it. Except that it isn’t.

That is exactly what happened to Jordan Zabinski on her first time deer hunting in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania over Thanksgiving weekend.

I’ll let her take over the story:

“I was so terrified of a bear, and my husband was like, ‘I’ve never seen a bear except for this one time,’ he said, ‘don’t worry, you’re not gonna see one,’” Jordan Zabinkski said…

“I hear like, crunching. And I’m like ‘there’s a deer, there’s a deer!” she said. But it wasn’t another deer, Her biggest fear had come true. She was staring at four black bears. “And then right behind it comes three, and I’m like ‘okay, now there are four bears.’”

After multiple unanswered texts and calls to her husband, who was helping her brother load a deer he had killed, she started to worry.

“At first I was really quiet, but then I really started to freak out,” Zabinski said. After finally getting a hold of her husband, she had to wait about 30 more minutes, so she tried to keep as quiet as possible. “It’s been a while now and no one’s coming. What if they don’t to get me in time?”

Eventually Jordan’s husband and brother arrived. Yelling at the bears was enough to get them to leave. Fortunately, for Jordan the only damage that the bears did was to the tail.

From what I understand, Pennsylvania does allow bear hunting but you are required to have a bear tag. However, from what I can tell, Jordan was in Wildlife Management Unit 2E where the season was closed when she got her deer.

According to the Pennsylvania Game Commission, it is unlawful to put food or minerals out to attract bears. That, of course, leads to the question – is the deer that you just killed considered baiting if it attracts four bears? The answer should be an emphatic NO but one never knows.

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Camouflage Maps

December 5, 2021 by 3 Comments

I like camouflage. I like reading about how different styles are developed as well as the history and science of it. I like to see how both military and hunting camo styles are developed.

Thus, when I stumbled across maps showing camouflage adoption and use, I was intrigued.

Here is a map of Europe with the different military camouflage patterns by country.

You can see France with its CCE Woodland camo, Germany with its Multitarn which replaced Flecktarn, and the UK with MTP camo which is a DPM variant of Multicam. I have jackets that I use for hunting in CCE, MTP, and the original British DPM (Disruptive Pattern Material). They all are good at different times in the season and were bought as military surplus. They are rugged and relatively inexpensive.

In researching this post, I have come across both a map of Africa and a map of the world by the camouflage patterns adopted by each countries military.

From Dreamstime

From Reddit

The next two maps are the ones I first stumbled across. They are two maps of the United States with one each for spring/summer and fall/winter. They divide the country up into the appropriate camouflage pattern for the region.

By an interesting coincidence (or not), the camouflage for coastal North and South Carolina in the spring and summer is MARPAT. Also located in this region are MCB Camp Lejeune, MCAS Cherry Point, MCAS New River, MCAS Beaufort, and MCRD Parris Island.

Once fall hits and the leaves start falling, the best camouflage from my section of North Carolina would be Partizan SS with ATACS FG for the Piedmont. I can actually see that as the forests are heavily deciduous with pockets of green from hemlocks and rhododendrons.

I guess if I were artistic or really industrious, I would create a US map with the best commercial hunting camouflage patterns. That said, I’m not that artistic. I will say my preferences in hunting camouflage run to the disruptive rather than hyper-representational. That is why I like camouflages like TrueTimber’s Strata, NaturalGear, and ASAT as opposed to some of the Realtree and Mossy Oak patterns.

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Quote Of The Day

December 4, 2021 by

Every Saturday morning I go to the Powerline Blog to see their roundup of the week in pictures. Along the way I stumbled across a post by Kevin Roche on a speech given by President Biden regarding the Omicron variant. Or, as Roche put it, the Moronic Variant.

From the post:

Biden delivered the remarks setting forth his big plan to stem the panic he has helped foment over the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus. Does this make sense? Are we going to develop seasonal campaigns to address each new variant of the virus? This is madness.

As always, the remarks stressed a theme with monomaniacal intensity. We are all voyagers on the good ship Pequod. Biden is our Captain Ahab. Covid-19 is his Moby Dick. The prospects are not good.

The Moby Dick reference is very apropos given it was first announced in November. If you have ever read Melville’s book, you might remember this line from the very first paragraph.

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

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South Africa Is Not Happy

December 3, 2021 by 6 Comments

The countries in southern Africa are not especially pleased with the rest of the world. This is due to the travel bans being put in place restricting travel to and from a number of southern African nations as a result of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.

Probably no country is as pissed off as South Africa. President Cyril Ramaphosa was especially angry calling the travel restrictions “unjustified and discriminatory.” He went on to add:

“The prohibition of travel is not informed by science, nor will it be effective in preventing the spread of this variant. The only thing the prohibition on travel will do is to further damage the economies of the affected countries and undermine their ability to respond to, and recover from, the pandemic,” Ramaphosa said on Sunday.

Travel and tourism were finally getting back on their feet in South Africa after being crushed by COVID-19 in 2020. This is especially true for the safari industry. For example, with the US ban on visitors from South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique among others, outfitters and safari companies will not be able to send representatives to major conventions in January such as those of the Dallas Safari Club and Safari Club International.

Spike.T, who is a regular on the Africahunting.com forums and who lives in Zambia, posted this somewhat satirical account of the Omicron variant and the world’s reaction.

“In just 48hrs everything just went upside down, looking at all the updates and social media posts I could not help but write the below outlining the absurd response from the countries. Maybe some of them will realize what has actually transpired.”

South Africa: Hey guys, look what we discovered in our labs while researching Covid19 variants and mutations

World: What??

SA: It’s a new variant of Covid19, seems to be different than others, lets work together and study it further.

World: What? You have a new variant of Covid19?!?!

SA: No, we just found a way to ‘identify’ a new variant, it seems it has also already been detected in Hong Kong, Israel and Botswana.

UK: Hey guys, no offence but we already have 45,000 cases a day, don’t wear a mask everywhere, allow large gathering however we cannot risk getting a new variant.

SA: But we just identified it and showed you guys how to check for this variant, it did not originate here. We have advanced labs because we do research on AIDS, TB and other communicable diseases.

UK: Thank you for the research, however a complete travel ban to you and your 5 neighbors.

Netherlands: We heard UK banned flights to you because you have the new variant, we are also imposing a ban to you and your neighbors!

Namibia: WTF! What did we do? We have less than 20 new cases a day since a month now!

EU: Guys, we have a situation in our hands.

Namibia: The situation where Germany has had 76,000 cases a day and Other countries are breaking daily records for cases?

EU: No, not that situation.

Lesotho: Is it that UK still has 40,000+ cases a day and doesn’t seem to have it under control?

EU: No, UK isn’t a part of us anymore, not our concern.

Malawi: We hear Poland has some serious rise in cases and hospitalizations

EU: Really?! We have no idea, we must look into it. But not what we are talking about.

Eswatini: What situation then?

EU: We heard that South Africa has a new variant, their numbers are rising rapidly and since some of you are next to them, we need to close travel to the region with immediate effect!

SA: Dude, we just identified it! We only have a few cases in the region. Especially when compared to what you guys have. What’s with the knee-jerk reaction?

Namibia: Knee-jerk, that’s the word we were looking for.

UAE: We are closing flights to Southern Africa, we don’t want to risk it. Sorry guys.

USA: We are looking into this and studying the variant, we wont ban flights yet.

SA: Thank you USA, finally a voice of reason!

Mauritius: Sorry SA and the variant group, I saw some other countries refer to you as that, we are friends and all but we are concerned about our tourism and economy, so we will also ban you guys for now until we know further.

SA: We thought you were family. Goes to show how money is more important!

Belgium: We already have 1 new case of the new variant, thanks a lot SA.

SA: We literally just showed you how to identify it.

UK: Thanks a lot SA, now we also have 2 cases of it.

SA: What about our vaccinated people?

World: Nope, we need to run tests first and figure out what this virus can do and how effective the vaccination is against it.

WHO: Hey guys, a quick question. The next Greek alphabet is ‘Xi’. What do we do? China? Are you here?

China: Don’t you dare! Leave us and our president out of it. Call it something else. And we don’t allow anyone in anyway, so the variant is not our concern.

WHO: We got it boss. It’s now called Omicron.

WHO: Sorry we meant Sir. China isn’t our boss.

SA: It’s true what they say, no good deed goes unpunished. The next time we won’t tell you guys about the next mutations or variants we find.

World: Sorry can’t hear you, too busy dealing with the outbreak that you caused. How about we talk about this later?

Namibia: It’s the weekend, lets braai & go camping and let the world figure this one out themselves, we are still open to everyone. And if you wish to travel here, ask your leaders to start thinking before making decisions.

To be continued…..

Written by Nrupesh Soni.

I know there is great fear about COVID-19. While I am neither a scientist nor an epidemiologist, it seems that this strain may be more transmissible but on the ground reports indicate that the symptoms tend to be less severe. We shall see but I really hope that we don’t head into another round of lockdowns or even Australian-style concentration camps.