Category: Rights

The Times May Be A-Changin’

Over time, we’ve seen changes in focus by the hoplophobic elements of society. Originally, it was all about banning handguns or at least “Handgun Control Inc.” The “assault weapon”, that is, the AR ban of 1994-2004 followed, with no discernible effect on crime, homicide, etc. Movement mutation continued, with groups dropping wording advocating bans, moving to claims of fighting pure “violence” and promoting gun “safety”.

Now they want to address “root causes” of violence instead of just restricting legal gun ownership, though still advocating extending background checks while “not taking anyone’s guns”. Intervening within high-crime communities, and with those at high risk of committing and becoming victims of violence, is appropriate, though far more difficult than they may imagine.

Throughout, we’ve had no reason to believe that these anti-gun activists have had any real change of heart. Their “conversation” always comes around to the desirability of somehow limiting the rights of law-abiding American gun owners in some way, even if in “just” creating more hoops to jump through in order to purchase, keep or bear our arms.

However, there is a fundamental factor that will trump all their intentions, both open and disguised. That is us, the people (and voters) of democracies. As Andrew Breitbart famously said, “Politics follows culture” and culture is changing. Much of this is due to the past 2 years of violence approved and applauded by “progressive” politicians who thought this would garner minority votes. Their groupthink about ethnicity blinded them to the reality that people of all ethnicities, communities and societies want crime stopped lest it hit them.

People are simultaneously realizing that they can’t count on being protected and must plan to do that for themselves. Thus the huge rise in gun purchases by more diverse buyers than ever, including women, minorities (especially African-American women) and self-described liberals. It’s been speculated that this increase in valuing self-protection with firearms may transfer to an increase in valuing Second Amendment rights—and now, that’s no longer speculation.

The Trafalgar Group, a non-partisan polling operation, just released a poll in which over 84% of respondents believed that “strict gun laws” either make no difference in or worsen the current surge in retail thefts. Less than 16% believed such laws can make this better.

In November, Quinnipiac found that 48% of those surveyed opposed stricter gun laws versus 47% who support them—following a trend beginning in 2015, now over the tipping point to plurality opposition. Gallup’s polling in November correlates, with a new low of only 52% of Americans caring that “laws covering the sale of firearms” should be stricter (down from a high of 64% in 2019, falling through 57% in 2020).

Meanwhile, ABC/Ipsos found that 66% of Americans disapprove of how President Biden is addressing gun violence (which could imply wanting more or less strict laws). Republicans’ opposition to more gun laws has strengthened, Democrats’ preference for more strict gun laws is lessening, predictably. But the most important political demographic—independents—have shifted dramatically in favor of, shall we say, individual independence on this issue.

In the latest National Firearms Survey published in July 2021, nearly 1/3 of respondents acknowledged owning guns, more than half of those carry them and almost 1/3 of them reported having to use them defensively in one or more of the estimated nearly 1.7 million episodes of self-defense. In 82% of these DGUs, it wasn’t necessary to fire. Almost 80% of these incidents occurred in the defender’s home or on their property, with the rest mostly occurring in public or at work, still a very substantial number.

NSSF also found that 49% more Hispanic Americans (no, none use “Latinx”) purchased firearms in 2020 than in 2019. With 40% of all gun purchases during the past 2 years coming from new gun owners, it’s no surprise that Hispanics (as well as African-Americans) are increasingly voting more for individual rights than for government “protection”.  In Berkeley, California, of all places, the Latino Rifle Association has grown by hundreds of members since 2020. Its “leftists . . . socialists, progressives” members realize that “The police and the government aren’t taking care of me, so I have to do things on my own.”

Funny thing, that’s what conservatives have recognized for generations. And a much bigger organization, the National African-American Gun Association, has added tens of thousands of new members since 2016, accelerating (along with many local gun clubs oriented toward minorities) during the past 2 years.

Even our less demonstrative Anglophone cousins, Canadians and Kiwis, aren’t cooperating any more with government orders to turn in their newly banned guns than Americans have. Neither are turning in their formerly legal, acceptable firearms—only 160 of an estimated 100,000 affected firearms have been surrendered in Canada in a year and a half. In New Zealand, the 2019 ban of most repeating arms “has had no impact on a rise in gun crime and violence”, except for a steadily increasing rate of the offense of still possessing such firearms.

This is precisely the cultural change that precedes and triggers political change. Most Americans already knew that protecting individual rights is the uncompromisable basis of the success of American society and polity. Many others know that now and more are learning. While Donald Trump improved the Republican share of the Black and Hispanic votes (especially among men), this wasn’t about him or the party. It is about the importance of each person’s rights as an American.

Most expect that the Supreme Court will affirm the Second Amendment with a ruling in Bruen voiding New York City’s may- (= non-) issue handgun carry permitting, along with the 8 other states that persist in that tyranny. The “progressive” left will keep caterwauling if they don’t get their way. But should the decision go otherwise, their wailing would be nothing compared to the anger of the majority who are now convinced that individual rights are more important than political correctness. And that would assuredly lead to even greater political change in favor of ensuring those rights.

To paraphrase St. George Tucker, “the true palladium of liberty” isn’t just “the right of self-defence.” The right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense and opposing tyranny is necessary to a free people in a free state. But it is a means to the goal, along with representative democracy lustily embraced, which is “to keep our republic” (h/t B. Franklin). The ultimate mark of liberty is individual autonomy, where the rights of the individual are placed above government’s privileges, which are only bestowed by us individuals.

Nation of Cowards is now back in print

Nation of Cowards is a collection of amazingly well thought out essays. Jeff Snyder is clearly among the most knowledgeable, well-read scholars writing about guns today. He clearly shows gun control advocates for what they really are. Most importantly, he makes a passionate, intellectual argument on the ethical aspects of gun ownership. He argues convincingly that aside from being unconstitutional and elitist, gun control is also deeply unethical. This book belongs in the library of anyone who believes that people have a right to defend themselves.

A must read for those with an interest in not only the 2nd Amendment, but all of the rights we are possess. The author effectively opens your mind to strong thinking about the ideas associated with gun control.

BLUF:
The Chronicle of Higher Education today is out with an article bemoaning J.D. Vance for saying “professors are the enemy.”
I wonder where he could possibly have gotten such an outlandish idea?

THE LEFT VS. THE CONSTITUTION

One reason the left hates the American Constitution, and wishes to replace it, is that its embedded principles along with much of its explicit text is foursquare against the two main purposes of the left: class struggle and race struggle. Never mind the drive to abolish the electoral college, or the Senate, or admit new states to increase the odds of Democratic election victories. Just take in how the left wants to rewrite—which means abolish—the Bill of Rights.

The Boston Globe is currently running a feature series about how to “edit” the Constitution, which of course means replacing it in practice with an egalitarian Constitution that would place much more power to control people and resources in elites like the kind of people you find in the editorial suites of the Boston Globe. How convenient.

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GunSense Vermont takes the side of criminal entities

To the editor: This is in response to a letter to the editor from GunSense Vermont than ran in the Nov. 30 edition of the Montpelier-Barre Times Argus.

I have to wonder why “thoughtful people” and GunSense Vermont (GSVT) are appalled by the Rittenhouse verdict. Kyle Rittenhouse, who defended himself from a violent and life threatening attack, was charged, tried and acquitted by a jury of his peers. This is a clear example of self defense against known criminals.

Thoughtful people should wonder who GSVT is trying to protect — pedophiles, domestic abusers, or repeat offenders who illegally possess firearms? Rittenhouse’s attackers were all of the above, and GSVT takes the side of such criminal entities in their commentary.

Were the activities on that day a peaceful march like GSVT would have you believe? No, these law breakers were involved in a violent riot complete with looting and vandalism. The Rittenhouse verdict sends the right message, upholding the rule of law. Every citizen has the right to defend himself and herself.

Speaking of shooting defenseless victims, have you heard what Alec Baldwin has been up to recently? Where is your outrage, GSVT?

Randy Gray

N. Springfield, Vermont, Dec. 14

This is the kind of academic we should always be on guard to watch for.
This is a real, actual ‘enemy domestic’ of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
And, they infest the schools and universities, filling our children’s mind with this collectivist, authoritarian statist, mush.

Read – carefully- what she wants. Her revisions are what’s called ‘positive rights‘. What she wants the government to do, in effect granting rights from goobermint power.

Her definition of how the 1st and 2nd amendment were written are defined by her and her ilk as ‘negative rights‘. Rights already possessed by the people, that the goobermint is restricted from abridging or infringing.

Remember, when more than one politician down through history has said: ‘Any government that’s large enough to give you everything is powerful enough to take it all away.‘ One should believe them.

REDO THE FIRST TWO AMENDMENTS

BY MARY ANNE FRANKS
Speech and guns: two of the most contentious issues in America today, with controversies fueled not only by personal passions and identity politics but by competing interpretations of the Constitution. Perhaps more than any other parts of the Constitution, the First and Second Amendments inspire religious-like fervor in many Americans, with accordingly irrational results.

As legal texts go, neither of the two amendments is a model of clarity or precision. More important, both are deeply flawed in their respective conceptualizations of some of the most important rights of a democratic society: the freedom of expression and religion and the right of self-defense. These two amendments are highly susceptible to being read in isolation from the Constitution as a whole and from its commitments to equality and the collective good.

The First and Second Amendments tend to be interpreted in aggressively individualistic ways that ignore the reality of conflict among competing rights. This in turn allows the most powerful members of society to reap the benefits of these constitutional rights at the expense of vulnerable groups. Both amendments would be improved by explicitly situating individual rights within the framework of “domestic tranquility” and the “general welfare” set out in the Constitution’s Preamble.

Making such an edit to the First Amendment would provide stronger and fairer protections for the right of expression, including by acknowledging, as many state constitutions do, that every person remains responsible for abuses of that right. (Such a modification would, for example, help undo the damage caused by the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United and remove constitutional barriers to reasonable campaign-finance laws that promote democratic legitimacy.) In addition, the implicit principle of the separation of church and state should be made explicit:

Every person has the right to freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly, and petition of the government for redress of grievances, consistent with the rights of others to the same and subject to responsibility for abuses. All conflicts of such rights shall be resolved in accordance with the principle of equality and dignity of all persons.

Both the freedom of religion and the freedom from religion shall be respected by the government. The government may not single out any religion for interference or endorsement, nor may it force any person to accept or adhere to any religious belief or practice.

Both amendments would be improved by explicitly situating individual rights within the framework of “domestic tranquility” and the “general welfare” set out in the Constitution’s Preamble.

The Second Amendment’s idiosyncratic and anachronistic focus on militias and “arms” degrades the concept of self-defense. The right to safeguard one’s life should not be conflated with or reduced to the right to use a weapon, especially a weapon that is so much more likely to inflict injury and death than to avoid it. Far better would be an amendment that guarantees a meaningful right to bodily autonomy and obligates the government to implement reasonable measures to protect public health and safety:

All people have the right to bodily autonomy consistent with the right of other people to the same, including the right to defend themselves against unlawful force and the right of self-determination in reproductive matters. The government shall take reasonable measures to protect the health and safety of the public as a whole.

Mary Anne Franks is the Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair at the University of Miami School of Law and the author of “The Cult of the Constitution: Our Deadly Devotion to Guns and Free Speech.”

For your consideration…………..

Charles Cooke:
I’ll be teaching an online course: The History of the Second Amendment

Hullo, everyone. I’m just popping in to let you all know about an online course I’m teaching early next year called The History of the Second Amendment. It’s with a new startup called Chapter, which noticed that pretty much every course they were offering was either progressive or progressive-adjacent, decided that it didn’t want to become an echo chamber, and so asked me to teach one, too. I suggested the history of the right to keep and bear arms as a topic, they agreed, and here were are.

Chapter describes its system as “like a book club, but way more fun.” Each week, I’ll provide a reading list (which could be articles, reviews, videos, podcasts, or primary source documents), along with insights and tips on each one. There will be a community forum in which you can discuss each topic, as well as a rolling Q&A in which I will answer questions — both on their website and, if the topic warrants it, by video. Because people are busy, everything will be “asynchronous” — that is, you can take part whenever you’re free, rather than at times that are set by me. The course will last four weeks, it will cost $40 (actually: $35 for Ricochet members), and it will run the gamut.

— Week One will be on pre-Revolutionary America. We’ll explore how the right to keep and bear arms came over with the colonists from Britain, before making its way into the heart of American law.

— Week Two will be on the Founding Era. We’ll ask why the Second Amendment was added to the federal constitution, what were the Founders’ intentions in including it, and what did militias have to do with a right “of the people”?

— Week Three will be on the post-Civil War period, during which the Second Amendment took on a new meaning — especially during the era of Jim Crow — and was changed by the 14th Amendment.

— Week Four will be on the Second Amendment as it exists today. We’ll cover contemporary American jurisprudence, the Heller decision, and the political rebirth of the right.

The course will start on January 24th, 2022. If it interests you, can sign up here: https://getchapter.app/@cooke/guns. And if it doesn’t? Well, I shall cry into my golf cart batteries. Chapter has agreed to knock $5 off the price for Ricochet members if you use the code RICOCHET when checking out, so if you do sign up, make sure you do that.

‘Surveys’ are brethren to ‘Polls’ i.e. hocus pocus to advance an agenda. Knowing who participated, informs you what the agenda is.
And the one thing missing in the whole deal about “policy effects” is a question about how all this interacts with the Constitutional restrictions that are slowly being acknowledged and put back into effect

Survey: Gun Policy Experts Find Some Common Ground Amid Broad Disagreement

Gun policy has become increasingly polarized over the past several years and it often seems like compromise is impossible, but new data suggests that may not be the case.

While wide gaps remain in attitudes toward gun policies, research indicates some areas of agreement among gun policy experts–often beyond the typical proposals that dominate the conversation around guns. That’s according to survey data published on Tuesday by the RAND Corporation. Researchers found that experts across the ideological spectrum were largely united on policy outcome objectives and even shared some common interest in specific policies such as prosecuting prohibited possessors who seek firearms and expanding mental health prohibitions.

“Our results strongly suggest that differing favorability ratings in the permissive and restrictive groups were explained largely, and indeed almost exclusively, by differences in estimates of what the true effects of the policies will be, not by differences in which policy outcomes predict the groups’ favorability ratings,” the study said. “Indeed, both groups’ most strongly preferred policy goals were to reduce firearm suicides and firearm homicides.”

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Next Step for the Parents’ Movement: Curriculum Transparency.
Parents have a right to know what’s being taught to their children.

In 2021, public school parents vaulted to the forefront of America’s fractured political landscape. Around the country, parents objected both to Covid-related school closures and to racially divisive curricula. Parental frustration helped secure sweeping GOP wins last month in Virginia, highlighted by Glenn Youngkin’s victory over former governor Terry McAuliffe. Youngkin has promised to rein in public-school radicalism and “ban critical race theory” on his first day in office.

Perhaps the central moment in the Virginia gubernatorial race was McAuliffe’s comment during a debate: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Like most Virginia voters, we couldn’t disagree more. Research shows that greater academic success follows when parents actively engage in their children’s education. To be sure, this doesn’t mean that we should decide the finer points of curricular design by plebiscite; nor does it mean that a minority of objecting parents should dictate school pedagogy. But public schools are institutions created by “We the People” and should be responsive to the input of parents and the broader voting public at the state and local level.

At a minimum, parents should be able to know what’s being taught to their children in the classroom. Transparency is a virtue for all of our public institutions, but especially for those with power over children. To that end, we have drafted a template—building on one of our earlier efforts at the Manhattan Institute and the work of Matt Beienburg at the Goldwater Institute—to inform state legislatures seeking to foster school transparency. The policy proposal is designed to provide public school parents with easy access—directly on school websites—to materials and activities used to train staff and teachers and to instruct children.

The last year and a half has demonstrated the need for transparency measures. As many public schools migrated to “virtual only” learning in response to the pandemic, parents received a first-hand look at the divisive, racialist curricula being taught to their children. They learned that public schools were forcing third-graders to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities, showing kindergarteners dramatizations of dead black children and warning them about “racist police,” and telling white teachers that they were guilty of “spirit murdering” minorities. These were not isolated incidents.

These revelations prompted parents to demand to know exactly what was being taught to their children. They felt that the public-school bureaucracies had been hiding controversial materials and exerting undue influence over their children, all in the service of fashionable left-wing ideologies.

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1, Behar has the intellectual capacity of an amoeba.

2, This was already addressed by SCOTUS in Heller. to wit:
Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous, that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment.
We do not interpret constitutional rights that way. Just as the First
Amendment protects modern forms of communications,…….
., and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern
forms of search……….., the Second Amendment extends, prima
facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms,
even those that were not in existence at the time of the
founding

Joy Behar: It’s Time To ‘Tweak’ 1st And 2nd Amendments Because Founding Fathers Didn’t Have AR-15s And Twitter

“The View” co-host Joy Behar said Tuesday that the 1st and 2nd Amendments to the U.S. Constitution needed to be “tweaked a little bit” because the Founding Fathers did not have things like AR-15s and Twitter.

Co-host Whoopi Goldberg began the discussion with the news that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey had stepped down a day earlier and noted that he had been proactive in policing hate speech — namely because Twitter was first to eject former President Donald Trump from its platform.

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We’ve heard in the past that it was not just one right, but all of them that TPTB wanted to restrict. Well, those saying that were right.

Second Amendment Censorship

When White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki called the Biden administration’s desire for speech restrictions from Big Tech “our asks” last July, tremors shook the foundation of the First Amendment so hard they reverberated all the way to the Second.

Gun owners are already acutely aware that Facebook, Twitter and other Big Tech companies censor, demonetize and outright ban a lot of firearm-related content. It also isn’t a secret that President Joe Biden (D) and his administration want a long list of gun-control laws, gun bans and more sent to his desk. So the notion that this administration could pressure—or, as Psaki says, “ask”—Big Tech to help them control the conversation about the Second Amendment in order to sway public opinion is worrying.

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In early colonial times, some colonies often ordered the populace to bear their weapons to work and even to church services. Even farther back than that, in medieval Europe, the practice of being armed at certain public functions finally devolved into carrying huge, ornately decorated ‘Bearing Swords’ which was more an indication of class status. The bigger and more expensive, the higher up the ladder you- or the master a squire was carrying for -was.
The city council of this town wants everyone attending council meetings to bear arms…. if they want to.
I rather like the idea.

‘Legally armed’ rule has critics gunning for New Mexico town

ESTANCIA, N.M. (AP) — Mayor Nathan Dial said a recently approved rule requiring people to be “legally armed” to attend an Estancia Town Council meeting is just a way of sending notice that the town is not going to let the state dictate what it can and cannot do.

“Rural New Mexico is just tired of being pushed around,” Dial told the Albuquerque Journal as he sat in town hall with a snub nose .357 on his hip. “This is not just about the Second Amendment. This is about all civil liberties.”

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Right To Dissent & The Right To Bear Arms: Bulwarks Against Tyranny

Americans remain at the moment privileged to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, Independence Day, Labor Day, and other Holidays. But, for how much longer.

A year ago July, Independence day we wrote of the dire threats to our Nation, coming from within.

“With Independence Day only days away, this Country can hardly be in a celebratory spirit, as the very words, ‘nationalism’ and ‘patriotism’ are treated like obscenities.

We witness two-legged predators laying waste the Land, destroying property, intimidating innocent Americans, causing bedlam and mayhem. The police, under fire, are ordered to stand down. Government cowers. Law and Order breaks down everywhere. The seditious Press and Radical Left members of Congress, along with Radical Left State Governors and City Mayors give their blessing to the perpetrators of this violence.”

See also our sister article, posted a few days earlier.

Has anything changed, almost seventeen months later? Yes, the threat to our Nation has only grown direr.

The Trotting Horse of American Marxism and Neoliberal Globalism is now running at full gallop. It is charging directly toward a formidable defense to be sure—the Bill of Rights. But it is determined to break through, destroying the Constitution of the United States, annihilating a free Republic, subjugating a free and sovereign people.

Evidence for this is everywhere, including, inter alia:

  • Government acquiescence to violent rioting, and looting in the Nation’s cities.
  • A systematic plan to indoctrinate the Nation’s youth with “Critical Race Theory”.
  • Constraints on the exercise of Free Speech/Intolerance toward Dissent.
  • Violations of Due Process and Equal Protection Guarantees.
  • Violations of the Right Against Unreasonable Searches and Seizures. [Red Flag Laws]
  • Unlawful Government orders and mandates, such as mandatory COVID Vaccinations.
  • Failure of Government to Enforce the Nation’s Immigration Laws.
  • Debilitation of the Military: Purging of the Ranks, Politicization of Upper Echelons, Creating Dissension, and Destroying morale.
  • Consolidation of Governmental power in a single Branch.
  • Expanding Federal Government power over the people and the States.
  • Emasculation of State and Community Police Forces.
  • Politicization and Corruption of Executive Branch Departments.
  • Deliberate Destruction of the Nation’s Economy.
  • Collusion between the Government and the Press to Distort News and to indoctrinate the public. [Fake News Media]
  • The defacing, destroying, and removing of national monuments.
  • Denigration of the American Flag and other national emblems.
  • Belittlement of the notion of “Citizen of the United States”.
  • Ennoblement of Marxist Lawbreakers and Illegal Aliens.

And most ominously,

  • Concerted Attacks on Civilian Possession of firearms and of the inherent, natural Right of Armed Self-defense.

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This isn’t something new. It’s been going on as long as I can remember.

Government Is Conditioning Americans To Despise Their Rights & Liberties

The Neo-Marxist/Neoliberal Globalist goal is to dismantle the Republic.

To accomplish that task it is necessary to disrupt the underpinnings of our society. That society is predicated on the tenets, precepts, and principles of Individualism and on the Judeo-Christian ethic, not the amoral tenets, precepts, and principles of Collectivism, permeating throughout society. The manipulation of language plays an important part in the attempt to transform America into a Collectivist Dictatorship.

Language offers a more emphatic and critical need for serious discussion. For political theorists and sociologists, the politico/socio import of reshaping language is important. It is certainly important to the Destroyers of a free Constitutional Republic. It is important for the Destroyers of our Nation to change our perception of it; of its basic underpinnings. Manipulation of language becomes an important tool in the arsenal of those forces bent on dismantling a free Republic.

If language is perception, and reality is built on perception, and a million people say the “emperor” is wearing fine apparel, when he is stark naked, is this delusion, then, to be taken as reality? Perhaps not; probably not. But, if a few sane people exist in a Nation that has gone insane, who claim to see the emperor as he really is, “in the buff,” and dare to say it is so, then all the worse for those rational people. They will not be long tolerated. They must play along, just as the masses have played along, pretending the emperor is fully draped in his finest apparel, lest they be targeted for special, unpleasant treatment.

But, through time, the delusion becomes more entrenched. And as more and more people seemingly “buy into” the delusion, to avoid negative repercussions for pointing out the delusion, then the distinction between reality and illusion will truly become blurred, distorted, and at some point, the intellect will not be able to tell the two apart.

But we are not quite there, yet. Sanity may still prevail.

Many Americans are coming to perceive the imminent threat the Marxist/Globalist poses to the preservation of a free Constitutional Republic.

Americans see that the Marxist/Globalist aims are not compatible with the continued existence natural law rights go unchecked. One or the other must go.

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The Rittenhouse Trial Underscores the Left’s Determination to Eliminate the Natural Right of Self-Defense

The American left’s determination to conduct a media-inspired political trial of Kyle Rittenhouse had as its objective the ultimate disarming of Americans and the elimination of the Second Amendment.  While Kyle Rittenhouse was listed as the defendant, it was the right of self-defense that was on trial.

To what extent does man have a natural or God-given right to self-defense and protection of himself and his property?  This question has been bandied about for thousands of years and that issue, not guns (which are an instrument of self-defense), is at the heart of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The United States is the only nation in the annals of mankind to be established on the basis of a political and social philosophy centered on natural, or God-given, rights.
Among these are self-defense and property.  Property rights are the bedrock of the American political system; without that foundation, there is no freedom.

The Founders held that property rights encompass not just physical property but also one’s life, labor, speech, and livelihood, as individuals own their own lives; therefore, they must own the products of that life which can be traded in free exchange with others.  Further, as there is a natural right of self-preservation, man has the right and duty to defend himself against transgressors, including the state, that would deny, abrogate, or unlawfully seize his property.

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Tools in the service of tyranny

What do a virus, a Marxist movement, and bans on firearms have in common?  Nothing, superficially.  Delving deeper, they are tools of federal oppression.

An obvious common element of the three tools is the fear they engender: of infectious death, of unchecked rioting and looting, and of gun violence.  These dangers are in fact greatly exaggerated or fabricated altogether.

Stanford economist Paul Romer is credited with first saying, “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.”  Washington has taken this idea to heart.

In 2019, when no crisis existed, the Washington establishment created the perception of existential threat from COVID that would kill 2.2 million Americans without drastic federal intervention.  In fact, COVID carried a risk for the general, healthy population similar to seasonal flu and was dangerous only to elderly, immuno-compromised individuals with pre-existing conditions.  Biden, Fauci, and the media made it seem as if we all would die if we did not follow Washington’s draconian orders for lockdowns, social distancing, and vaccine mandates.

Fauci commanded Americans to put aside concerns about “personal liberties” for the greater public welfare.  We had to accept federal suppression of constitutionally guaranteed rights such as free speech, religious liberty, right to assemble, and even right to work to defeat the “common enemy.”

The “swamp” used fear of COVID as a tool to impose pseudo-martial law.

Biden COVID mandates exceeded federal authority.  They are unconstitutional, as the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals recently reminded Washington.  Public health measures are state, not federal, responsibility.

BLM (Black Lives Matter) is a proudly Marxist, domestic organization hiding behind the obvious slogan that the lives of black people matter — just as the lives of all people matter.  Yet the Biden administration has tolerated the violence, arson, looting, and even murder by armed BLM agitators in all-black garb and ski mask anonymity.

Washington and Biden’s DoJ tacitly condone BLM’s domestic terrorism for one reason: it promotes an atmosphere of fear and insecurity.  This led to cries to the federal government: do something, anything!  In response, they changed or suspended rules, laws, and constitutional rights using violence in the name of social justice as an excuse.  Washington encouraged defunding local police departments while offering federal “policing” for local communities.

Washington’s tolerance and covert encouragement of BLM is another way to justify extending federal power and reach.

When the Bill of Rights was written, there was no real difference in military power of a state militia compared to the Continental Army.  They both had muskets, handguns, bayonets, horses, and even cannon.  The Second Amendment does not use words such as “may” or “should” or “cannot.”  It reads “shall not [italics added] be infringed” — a simple, unambiguous, and unarguable command.

The Founders wanted private citizens to have the military capability to resist central government attempts to reimpose tyranny on its citizens.  Thus, after free speech and religious independence, the next most important “right” was to keep and bear (use) firearms, in armed defense, if necessary, of personal liberty and American freedom.

This is why Democrats seek to circumvent the Second Amendment and take away guns from private citizens.  Gun bans are another tactic of federal oppression.

In progressive hands, COVID, BLM, anti-gun laws, and many others are tools in the service of tyranny…if we allow it.

Free States Must Defend the Right to Self-Defense

The jury is still out as I write this; I wish I could be confident that our justice system will provide what it promises and that the unjustly accused will leave the courthouse wearing a smile instead of handcuffs. Kyle Rittenhouse, who went into the void created by the cowardly leftist officials who refused to protect decent citizens from the militarized wing of the Democrat Party, might well be convicted.

He got dragged through a legal nightmare, and if that’s all that happens to him, then that’s the best-case scenario. Us lawyers understand that evidence and law are not what determine jury verdicts; they are merely factors in a much bigger picture. Instead of facing life in prison, Kyle ought to get a medal for taking out several degenerates, including a promising potential Lincoln Project intern.

If you are looking for justice, you won’t necessarily find it in a courthouse.

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Comment O’ The Day
Can’t decide if the best part is Cheryl schooling this reporter or the VA results scrolling underneath

Watch This Based Mom School A Reporter On Why Good Guys Should Have Guns

It’s no secret that corporate reporters aren’t the most poised or articulate about handling or talking about guns, but a recent interaction between ABC News reporter Devin Dwyer and a mother of five in New York might take the cake.

ABC News aired a segment on Tuesday night previewing the laws and background of New York State Rifle and Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, which the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments for on Wednesday. The coverage is part of the corporate outlet’s larger “Rethinking Gun Violence” series, which is often used to amplify anti-gun activists’ war on firearms.

In the interview, Dwyer asks Cheryl Apple, a small business owner and recent first-time gun owner, to justify why she felt the need to apply for an unrestricted license to carry her 9 mm pistol. Her response to Dwyer is perfect.

“Do we really want a whole bunch of Cheryls running around with pistols in the grocery store?” Dwyer asked.

“Yeah, we probably do because Cheryl is trained,” Apple replied indignantly. “I feel proficient with my weapon, I feel secure with my weapon, and I feel confident with my weapon. I don’t think the Cheryls are the one[s] out there that are hurting people and committing the crimes and being unsafe with their guns.”

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From what little time I spent in Maryland, I wouldn’t want to be a part of the state either.

Justice to call special session for three Maryland counties to join West Virginia

After five Maryland lawmakers from three western Maryland counties announced that they want to secede from their state to join West Virginia, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice has begun planning a special session to try to make it happen.

The lawmakers represent three counties that border West Virginia – Allegany, Garrett and Washington. Allegany and Garret are the two counties within the narrow strip of northwestern Maryland that extends between Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Part of Washington is also in that strip of land.

This week, the lawmakers sent letters to West Virginia House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay and Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, requesting the state to add them as constituent counties of West Virginia. The letters said they believe the change would be beneficial to both states and requested to be advised on the next step.

All five lawmakers are Republicans in a state that is mostly Democratic. Former President Donald Trump received a majority of votes in all three counties in a state in which nearly two-thirds of the vote went for President Joe Biden. The counties are in a more rural and more conservative part of Maryland.

Justice, Hanshaw and Blair all expressed support for the change.

“Our state supports personal freedoms, we value the Second Amendment, and we love the rights of the unborn,” Justice said in a statement. “We love and embrace our energy industry. Moving to West Virginia means job opportunities like crazy and a chance to live in paradise. No matter where you’re from, we’d love to have you in West Virginia.”

There are more than 251,000 people who live in the three counties and if they joined West Virginia, two of the cities would be among the state’s 10 largest cities: Cumberland and Hagerstown.

Welcome to the Party, Pal!

Polimath (and others) are feeling the same oppressive weight of the government boot on their necks that America’s gun owners have been feeling ever since the introduction of the Sullivan Act.

“Just give up a little bit of your rights, and you’ll make the rest of us feel safer” has been the motto of the gun control movement since day one. Now that same logic, (if you want to equate emotion of feeling safe as logic) is being applied to public health as a whole, and people aren’t liking what they’re hearing.

Stephen Kruiser once said that firearms are the gateway drug to freedom. In this case, however, firearms ownership is the canary in the coal mine. What big government and runaway political corruption have been doing to our freedoms under the Second Amendment, they’re now doing to every other civil right as well.

Welcome to the party, everyone. Don’t say we never tried to warn you.

Virginia Parents Announce ‘Not a Domestic Terrorist’ March in Washington