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An Oldie But Goodie On The Terror Watch List

December 14, 2015 by



A 2008 story from the Washington Post regarding the terror watch list and death penalty opponents illustrates the danger of taking names on that list at face value. The Maryland State Police acknowledged before a Maryland Senate Judicial committee that they had added 53 non-violent activists to both state and Federal terror watch lists.

The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged yesterday.

Police Superintendent Terrence B. Sheridan revealed at a legislative hearing that the surveillance operation, which targeted opponents of the death penalty and the Iraq war, was far more extensive than was known when its existence was disclosed in July.

The department started sending letters of notification Saturday to the activists, inviting them to review their files before they are purged from the databases, Sheridan said.

“The names don’t belong in there,” he told the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. “It’s as simple as that.”

The surveillance took place over 14 months in 2005 and 2006, under the administration of former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R). The former state police superintendent who authorized the operation, Thomas E. Hutchins, defended the program in testimony yesterday. Hutchins said the program was a bulwark against potential violence and called the activists “fringe people.”

The people singled out in this case were death penalty opponents and anti-war protesters. According to logs obtained by the ACLU, the “primary crime” of some of these activists was “terrorism – anti-government.” MD Police Superintendent Sheridan said these names were added to the Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area database (which tracks terrorists and that they may have been shared with the National Security Agency and other Federal agencies. He added, however, that they were not on the Federal terrorist watch list which is a statement that I seriously doubt.

People considered anti-government terrorists during a Republican administration were peace activists and death penalty opponents. You have to wonder who the Obama Administration would consider anti-government terrorists today. We know that neither of the San Bernadino killers were on the list and they were actual terrorists. Could it be that gun rights activists, Tea Party activists, anti-ObamaCare activists, and anti-Common Core activists are considered anti-government terrorists?

I would hope more rational minds would reject this but gun rights activists have certainly been labeled that by Media Matters, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (sic). This is all the more reason to fight the inclusion of names on some ephemeral government “terrorist” list into the NICS system.

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Say It Ain’t So

December 12, 2015 by 2 Comments

News stories are linking one of the firearms used by ISIS in their Paris terror attacks to Century International Arms. The serial number of a Zastava M92 pistol recovered by French police matches that of one that Serbia-based Zastava Arms Factory exported to Century International in 2013.

From the Boston Herald:

Milojko Brzakovic of the Zastava arms factory told The Associated Press that the M92 semi-automatic pistol’s serial number matched one his company delivered to an American online arms dealer in May 2013. It was not clear how the gun got back to Europe.

At least seven of the weapons used or discovered after the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris have been identified as being produced by the Serbian factory located in Kragujevac, in central Serbia. Most were manufactured before Yugoslavia broke up in a civil war in the 1990s and most of those are modified versions of the Soviet AK-47, or Kalashnikov.

Brzakovic said all the guns were delivered legally but could have later found their way into illegal channels.

“One was delivered to Bosnia in 1983, one to Skopje, Macedonia in December 1987, one to Golubici, near Knin (Croatia) in 1988, one to Zagreb (Croatia) 1987,” he said.

He said the M92 pistol “is a semi-automatic weapon, a hunting and sporting weapon … it cannot fire barrage fire, only single shots … which are legal in America.”

Century International can’t confirm whether or not the weapon in question was sold by them to a FFL.

A Delray Beach-based arms importer can’t confirm whether one of its guns was used in the Paris terror attacks, but it is cooperating with investigators, company officials said in a statement released Friday.

Century Arms officials say they are unable to confirm that an M92 semi-automatic pistol it sold was found at the scene of the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.

“Century has an active and vibrant training and compliance program,” the statement read that was posted on the company’s website. “The company abides by all federal, state and local laws and regulations. Century expects the firearms it ships to licensed firearms dealers in the United States to be sold in strict compliance with the law.”

While Zastava says their records are accurate and that they have records going back 50 years where each and every firearm they produced was sent, all I’ll say is that it is still the Balkans. Gun running is a national hobby.

Imported firearms sold by Century International will have a mark somewhere on that firearm stating it was imported by them. I have a few older surplus rifles that came by way of Century and they all have Century’s markings on them. One of the frequent criticisms made by crufflers about Century is that their markings are too distinct and too visible. I would imagine modern arms imported by Century are no different. 

To paraphrase Cuba Gooding, Jr. in Jerry Maguire, show me the mark!

One thing we know for sure if it was actually shipped in 2013 then it couldn’t have been part of Operation Fast and Furious. Thank goodness for small favors.

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The Thing I Like About Small Town Papers

December 11, 2015 by 1 Comment

Unlike the editors of big city newspapers, the editors of small town newspapers have a modicum of common sense when it comes to guns. Perhaps it is because they are part of the community in which they live. In other words, they talk to real people down at the diner, shop at Walmart and Lowes, have kids that don’t go to prestigious prep schools, and are themselves not graduates of Harvard, Yale, or the Columbia School of Journalism.

Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina has one such newspaper. Yesterday, the editors of The Daily Herald ran an unsigned editorial headlined, “Our View: Guns not to blame for shootings“. What a distinct contrast from the New York Times which ran the front page, above the fold, editorial entitled, “The Gun Epidemic“.

The editorial starts out:

At some point in your life you’ve probably had to deal with someone who never accepted blame for their actions.

We all know the type. They externalize everything so that someone or something is always at fault – never themselves.

Right away you know that the people who wrote this editorial are ordinary folks. They aren’t invited to fancy cocktail parties nor do they live in penthouses. They may know some millionaires but they are probably farmers who are land rich and cash poor. They live in what would be called “flyover country” if it were not on the fall line between the Piedmont and the coastal plains of North Carolina.

The editorial continues:

As usual a cry went out immediately from disarmament activists for the government to enact stiffer gun laws or ban guns altogether. But it’s still an over-simplified solution to a complex national problem.


Blaming guns for these heinous shootings is as ridiculous as blaming a fork and spoon for obesity and needles for drug abuse.


The killing sprees in California, Colorado, Oregon, South Carolina and far too many other places were tragedies that cost this country dearly. Not only in terms of the loss of human life but also in the growing shadow of disgrace.


Claims that implementing gun control will put an end to these horrific mass shootings are as shallow and baseless as claiming prohibition stopped people from consuming alcohol.


No law can guarantee preventing a determined killer. That’s been proven in countries with strict gun laws like France, England and Norway where killers have obtained weapons illegally.

“Over-simplified solution” and “shallow and baseless” are not how journalists nowadays usually refer to gun control. These journalists actually have real common sense and reject the siren call that we “must do something”.

It concludes:

The very fabric of our country was woven with fundamental rights that include owning guns. The words of our Founding Fathers, “…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” are clear, precise and unequivocal.

The arms we bear are in fact our most important militia weapons. It was the specific intent of our Founding Fathers that our civilian populace be armed on an equal footing with any standing army to keep our homes and land safe.

With hundreds of millions of guns in private hands in this country, any attempt to take them away from law-abiding citizens will be met with strong resistance and certain failure.

Wow. Just wow. Reading something in a newspaper that refers to our firearms as “militia weapons” in a good way and not as something toted by mouth-breathing, Tea Party, right-wing, neo-Ku Kluxers is kind of shocking. Shocking in a good way, of course.

The people responsible for this editorial were Publisher Titus Workman, Managing Editor Matt Lindberg and News Editor Tia Bedwell. Two are from flyover country and the third is a local girl who worked her way up in the paper – and she has a Dachshund! The Daily Herald has a YouTube page and they put out a daily video called the Herald Bulldog Report highlighting the stories of the day. Here is the one from December 9th which features both Lindberg and Bedwell.

Why do I think I’d never see the editors of the New York Times or the Washington Post doing something like this? I think the answer is that they’d think it beneath them and therein lies the difference.

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Something To Think About

December 9, 2015 by

There has been much talk in recent days on whether persons on the FBI’s terrorist watch list, the Terrorist Screening Database, or the TSA’s No-Fly list should be allowed to purchase firearms.

The day after the terrorist attack in San Bernadino, Sen. Dianne Feinstein proposed Sen. Amendment 2910 to HR 3762 (a budget bill), which would have granted the attorney general the discretion to deny the right to purchase a firearm to anyone known or suspected of having been involved in any way with domestic or international terrorism. The Senate voted down this amendment 45-54.

Then this past Sunday in a televised speech to the nation from the Oval Office, President Obama said this:

To begin with, Congress should act to make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun. What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon? This is a matter of national security.

There have been many who have taken exception to using this no-fly list as means to deny someone the right to purchase a firearm. Prof. Eugene Volokh, among others, has objected to it on the basis of denial of due process noting that we don’t deny rights based upon mere suspicion. The New York Times was against them before they were for them. (My friend Prof. David Yamane has two very well-reasoned responses to the Times on this.) The NRA has long opposed using terrorist watch lists to deny firearm rights. Charles C. W. Cooke, a Brit who has a better appreciation for the Bill of Rights than many American politicians, says those who would use terror to subvert the Second Amendment should be tarred and feathered. That sounds appropriate to me.

Legal and philosophical arguments are fine and are needed. However, the most practical reason for not including those on any watch list on the NICS denied list is that it aids the terrorist.

What!? Aids the terrorist? The hell you say.

Larry Keane, General Counsel of the NSSF, explained his opposition to using these list to deny gun rights in a conversation with Jim Shepherd of the Gun/Outdoor/Tactical Wires.

His answer wasn’t based on individual gun rights.

Instead, it focused on the fact that adding a person who might be under suspicion for a criminal activity to the prohibited persons list wouldn’t keep them from getting firearms illegally, but it would create a de facto “terrorist notification system.

“If someone suspected they were being surveilled -or they were doing something illegal and wanted to know if they’d done something to alert authorities,” Keane said, “they could go to a gun store and try to make a legal purchase. If they were denied, well.there’s their answer.”

In essence, smart terrorists (and we better get used to the idea that our enemies are pretty smart) would use the NICS denial process as the on-line equivalent of a storefront’s glass windows. Spies, terrorists, and anyone being followed is trained to use the windows as a way to spot a tail. Terrorists could easily use the NICS system in much the same manner.

Moreover, by the time the NICS Center in Parkersburg, WV notifies a FBI Special Agent in eastern nowhere North Carolina that Mohammed al Mohammed was denied while trying to buy an AK at Bubba’s Bait, Tackle, Guns, and Beer in Chocowinity, old Mohammed will have gone underground. Furthermore, that overworked FBI Special Agent is probably working 10 MediCare fraud cases, 2 bank robberies, and a kiddie porn case and this will be just one more thing on his or her plate.

Forewarned is forearmed and that is the last thing you want to do when dealing with a terrorist. You want the terrorists rolled up with their guns and explosives in hand long before they’ve perpetrated this act of jihad. You absolutely don’t want them to accelerate their plans because authorities are on to them.

As I said, this is something to think about.

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NC Attorney General Roy Cooper Jumps On The “No-Fly, No-Gun” Bandwagon

December 9, 2015 by 1 Comment

Roy Cooper has been the Attorney General of North Carolina for the last 15 plus years. You’d think that in that time he’d have learned a little bit about protecting civil liberties. While he refused to sign on to the multi-state attorney general amicus brief in the Heller case, he did sign on to the one for McDonald v. Chicago. Cooper also intervened in the Duke lacrosse case which ultimately dismissed all the (false) charges against the three Duke University lacrosse players.

Now that Cooper, a Democrat, is running for governor he is going all out to look tough on crime and secure the votes of those who are feeling insecure during these times of Islamofascist terrorist attacks. To that end, he has proposed that the North Carolina General Assembly preempt Congress and prohibit those in the FBI‘s Terrorist Screening Database from purchasing firearms. It should be noted that neither of the San Bernadino killers was on the list.

Attorney General Roy Cooper on Monday called on state lawmakers to approve legislation that would prevent anyone being monitored by the FBI as a terror suspect from purchasing firearms in North Carolina.

“Stopping terror suspects from getting weapons that could harm our state and its people makes common sense,” Cooper said in a statement. “Even if Washington won’t act, we can.”

In the wake of last week’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., the U.S. Senate voted down a measure that would have curtailed the gun rights of people on the government’s no-fly list and other FBI databases of terror suspects.

Hasan Harnett, Chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, immediately fired back at Cooper.

“It’s shameful that Roy Cooper has chosen once again to side with Washington, D.C. and follow President Obama’s lead, using the recent terrorist attack as a bait-and-switch to push for more gun control in North Carolina. Considering anyone can be placed on the terror watch list for any number of reasons arbitrarily, it is equally as scary that our state’s elected attorney general and top law enforcement officer is for stripping our citizens of their constitutional rights and denying them due process in order to score points with the far-left elements of his party.”

 Roy Cooper has finally come out of the closet on gun control. For years he has been rather wishy-washy on gun rights. I’m actually glad that he has decided to ally himself with the national Democrat Party on gun control issues. Given that Michael Bloomberg spent millions to make sure the state kept it racist Jim Crow-era pistol purchase permit system, I would fully expect Cooper to get Bloomberg’s monetary support.

Grass Roots North Carolina is not taking Cooper’s proposal lying down. They have issued an alert and are asking people to both email and call Cooper regarding his proposal. They refer to it as “modern-day McCarthyism”. I would suggest everyone who is reading this to cut and paste the message and flood “No Fly” Roy’s mailbox.

NC’s
Attorney General to
Bring
Modern Day
McCarthyism to North

Carolina

Parroting Barack Obama and
Hillary Clinton,
North
Carolina Attorney General
Roy Cooper recently
demanded
state legislation to
deny gun purchases for
anyone
on the Terrorist Watch
List, saying:
“Stopping terror suspects from
getting weapons that could

harm our state and its people
makes common sense. Even if

Washington won’t act, we can.”
By barring gun purchases to

1,000,000 people on the
Terrorist Watch List, Cooper

surpasses even Barack Obama’s
proposal to deny roughly

50,000 people on the No Fly
List.

Fret not that tens of

thousands of lawful citizens –
including Senator Ted
Kennedy – have been
denied airline
transportation
thanks to
misidentification. Never mind
the
Terrorist Watch List is so
inaccurate it includes
72 Department of Homeland Security employees.

Forget that stringent gun
control in both France and

California failed to stop
terrorists from getting

weapons. And don’t bother to
read the Huff Post’s “7

Ways You (Yes, You) Could
End Up On A Terrorist Watch

List“.

Why not? Because all that is
trivial compared to having the

state’s top cop and would-be
governor proposing to flout

the Constitution by denying
you due process under both the

Fifth and Fourteenth
Amendments. You have no

“right” to fly, but as
affirmed by the Supreme Court
in DC v. Heller and
McDonald v. Chicago,
you
definitely have a
right to keep and bear
arms.

America has traveled this road
before, and the landscape

wasn’t pretty. Widespread
violations of Constitutional

rights and civil liberties in
the late 1950s against

“subversives” on secret
blacklists compiled by the FBI
were so shockingly
un-American, they earned their

own moniker: McCarthyism.

Where
will Cooper’s modern
McCarthyism end? Once
government is free to deny a

fundamental, enumerated
Constitutional right for

merely being included on a
secret list, are our other

cherished freedoms far behind?
Free speech? Freedom of

religion? History demonstrates
that when governments are free

to use the full powers of the
state against those on secret

lists, the first casualty is
liberty.

Due process
–
notice, an opportunity
to be heard, the
right to
face one’s accuser –
has been America’s
bulwark
against tyranny since
the Founders penned the

Constitution.

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED!

  • EMAIL ATTORNEY GENERAL ROY
    COOPER.     Use this contact form on the NC
    DOJ website:
    http://ncdoj.com/Home/ContactNCDOJ.aspx

    and use
    the copy/paste
    message provided below,
    under ‘Deliver This

    Message.’

  • PHONE ROY COOPER at this
    number: (919) 716-6400

    Tell
    him that you’ve
    read about his proposed

    scheme to suspend the
    Second Amendment rights

    of North Carolinians
    using the arbitrary and

    secret “Terrorist Watch
    List.” This would
    suspend the rights of
    certain citizens absent

    any proper due process.
    Suppressing the Fifth

    and Fourteenth
    Amendments is clearly

    illegal, and would be an
    example of modern day

    McCarthyism. It will not
    be
    tolerated.

DELIVER THIS MESSAGE

Suggested Subject:
“‘Watch List:’ No McCarthyism in
North Carolina!”  
Dear Attorney General Cooper:
I
have just read of
your
proposal to use the
“Terrorist Watch List” to
deny Second Amendment rights
to North
Carolinians. I
am absolutely
mortified to hear
this, and I
demand that you
immediately cease any effort

to establish what can only
be called modern day

McCarthyism.

The “watch list” is an
arbitrary and secret
government list. Citizens
who are placed on this list

usually have no knowledge of
the fact that they are on

it, have had no hearing, and
no opportunity to face their

accusers. There are also
numerous examples of

innocent civilians being
placed on this list in

error. The “watch list”
sidesteps due
process, and denying
citizens their
Constitutional rights
outside of proper due

process is a clear violation
of the Fifth and Fourteenth

Amendments.

There is no Constitutional
right to “fly commercial,”
but there is a
Constitutional right to keep

and bear arms. Do not
attempt to use an arbitrary

and secret government list
to deny human rights to
this
state’s citizens. It
would be a huge
mistake.

I
will be monitoring this
issue through alerts from

Grass Roots North Carolina.

Respectfully,
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About Those CMP 1911s

December 8, 2015 by 4 Comments

The Firearm Blog has done some excellent work on estimating the potential prices for the 10,000 Army-surplus 1911s that will be sold be the Civilian Marksmanship Program. Steve estimates that the price will probably be about 30% less than the going retail rate for a WWII milsurp 1911. He comes up with that figure by looking at the going rate for a M1 Garand from the CMP and the prices you will find on sites like Gunbroker.com. You can read his analysis here.

The Firearm Blog TV has produced a good little video explaining how it will all work.

One of the must-do things if you want to purchase any firearm or ammunition from the CMP is membership in an affiliated club. They have a search page to find a club in your area.

But what do you do if there are no clubs nearby or the club in your area is so stuck in a 1950s mindset that it just isn’t worth the injury from banging your head into the wall over their stupid rules? There are alternatives. For example, if you are a member of the Glock Shooting Sports Foundation, then you belong to an affiliated organization. Likewise if you joined the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA) so as to support their litigation in Chicago, you are a member of an affiliated organization.

Another alternative is the Garand Collectors Association. A membership there costs $25, qualifies you to buy from the CMP, and gets you a very nice quarterly journal with all things M1 Garand. Moreover, they have a close relationship with the CMP and they send membership rolls to the CMP on a regular basis. This is the direction that I plan to head.

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“From Infamy To Victory”

December 8, 2015 by

This video which is part of the NRA’s Frontline Series does an excellent job in showing how the United States went from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the signing of the surrender in Tokyo Bay. It is hosted by Ollie North.

Particularly poignant is the interview with Jiro Yakimura. Mr. Yakimura was a Nisei. That is, Mr. Yakimura was a natural born US citizen whose parents had immigrated from Japan. When Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Mr. Yakimura was a college student in Hawaii and was a member of ROTC. In the days that followed, he and his fellow ROTC students were given a 1903 Springfield and sent to guard various spots on Oahu. Then, due to his Japanese ancestry, his services to his country were no longer needed. The story has a somewhat happy ending as Mr. Yakimura was finally able to serve his country as an officer in Army Intelligence in the Pacific.

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A Day That Will Live In Infamy – 74th Anniversary

December 7, 2015 by 2 Comments

74 years ago today, on December 7th, 1941, fighters and bombers of the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the US Pacific Fleet in their home port of Pearl Harbor at 7:55am local time. IJN fighters and bombers also attacked US Army Air Force installations at Hickham, Wheeler, Bellows, and other air fields destroying most of the aircraft on the ground.

Most of the veterans on both sides have now passed away due to age. The National Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, in fact, disbanded at the end of 2011 due to the advanced age of the remaining survivors.

One of the few live broadcasts of the attack was from KGU Radio in Honolulu.

A list of the ships of the Pacific Fleet in port on December 7th can be found here along with the damage suffered. As bad as the attack was, most of the battleships went on to fight again later in the war.

The battle for Wake Island began simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor. The IJN and the Japanese Imperial Army launched widespread attacks beginning December 8th on the British in Malaya , the Dutch in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), and the Americans and Filipinos in the Philipines and Guam.

One immediate impact of the attack was that the industrial base of the United States shifted from a peacetime to a wartime footing. The propaganda poster below was meant to urge workers on.

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Quote Of The Day

December 6, 2015 by 1 Comment

The quote of the day comes from Herschel Smith at The Captain’s Journal. It is in response to an editorial by Josie Duffy at DailyKos. It should be noted that Duffy’s bio says she is an attorney.

Duffy said in her (fact challenged) editorial that our opinion on gun control doesn’t matter. That if we oppose gun control then we are saying that peoples’ lives matter less than our guns. Duffy has no clear understanding of the concept of self-defense nor of the role that firearms provide in securing.

Hershel said in response:

As for the disagreeable ones over at Kos, I would respond that if you bristle at the idea of gun rights, fine. But what you are really saying is that while evil men hunt down the innocent in places of work, worship and play to kill them, what you really want to see is those innocent men perish rather than have access to a means of self defense.

You would rather see women hiding and cowering under desks than be able to live another day for their children, and you would rather see blood in the streets for the sake of government control than free men who won’t allow their families to be harmed.

The hatred of police that your hippie fathers and mothers cherished, has turned into a love of government control. The love of guns owned and operated by the Black Panthers, The Weather Underground and others, turned into a hatred of anything that could threaten the power of the state – once your ilk was in charge. What you once loved you now hate because it gives someone else that same freedom and power. Admit it. Go ahead and admit it. Is that such an unreasonable thing to ask?

I could go on about Duffy’s editorial but I think Herschel does a better job of it.

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Happy Repeal Day!

December 5, 2015 by

On this date in 1933, the 21st Amendment to the Constitution repealed the 18th Amendment. The Great Experiment was called to a close when the state of Utah ratified the 21st Amendment at 5:32pm.

At the same time as he signed the proclamation officially ending Prohibition, FDR asked that saloons be prohibited and he “enjoined all citizens to cooperate with the government in its endeavor to restore a greater respect for law and order, especially by confining their purchases of liquor to duly licensed agencies.”

Governmental control of substances such as alcohol, tobacco, and coffee (yes, coffee!) have a long history as an article in today’s Weekend Wall Street Journal makes clear.

Although the U.S. is indelibly associated with Prohibition, authorities the world over have long regarded the pleasures (or vices) of alcohol, tobacco and coffee with deep suspicion. Concerns about these habit-forming substances’ potential health hazards didn’t provoke the official hostility. Instead it often came from paranoia over what the masses might get up to if allowed to let off a little steam without supervision.

What “the masses” might get up to including overthrowing their masters’ yoke. It was in the coffeehouses and taverns of Boston and Philadelphia that men such John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and others gathered to discuss the idea of an independent nation.

So whether it is alcoholic beverage control or gun control, the key word is always going to be control. Government, you see, just doesn’t trust us.