The messaging problem facing many Democrats is that they do look like this to many Americans … and will until such time as they're able to summon the courage to condemn the rioters (and not just "violence," which is easy to condemn) and their political goals. https://t.co/oNJZitMnWH
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) August 31, 2020
Category: Safety
National Rifle Association: “I don’t carry a gun to take life but to defend it”
In a more realistic tweet, The NRA on Sunday wrote: “I don’t carry a gun to take life.” “I carry a gun to defend life.”
I don’t carry a gun to take life.
I carry a gun to defend life.
— NRA (@NRA) August 31, 2020
The Second Amendment ensures that Americans can protect themselves, their families and their businesses, especially when the government is unwilling or unable to do so
Amid violence and riots, the rule of law has been abandoned by the same elected officials who swore to uphold it. Many Americans are indeed now choosing to exercise their Second Amendment rights; a national indicator for gun sales is at an all-time high. Continue reading “”
BLUF:
For better or worse, Democrats have tied themselves politically to the Marxist Black Lives Matter organization. Joe Biden, who has not been to Wisconsin in 670 days, finally but weakly denounced violent rioting, although he refused to explicitly condemn Antifa or BLM.
Corporate Media Didn’t Report What It’s Really Like In Kenosha, Wisconsin, So I Will.
The scene on Tuesday night was something I had only seen in photos of war-torn countries. Men and women stood with baseball bats, hand-guns, semi-automatic rifles, and shotguns in front of their businesses and homes.
*************
Many Kenoshans explained to me that law enforcement lacked the necessary numbers of officers to control the situation, forcing them to focus on defending public buildings, such as the courthouse, leaving citizens to fend for themselves.
Chuck, who owns an uptown tire shop, said he has been spending every night on his roof guarding his shop “with guns.” Chuck, who said he is “for Trump all the way,” was exhausted from several sleepless nights and fed up with his livelihood and life being terrorized by Black Lives Matter rioters. Chuck glared into my iPhone camera and said to the rioters, “Come to my shop and I’ll blow your heads off.” “I’ll even tell you where I’m at,” he said, adding, “C’mon, boys, I got something for your -sses.”
Not everyone was as prepared as Chuck. People who did not take their defense into their own hands met a sad fate. Sam, an Indian immigrant who owns a family-run car dealership in downtown Kenosha, lost “every dime” he has, and the 20 people Sam employed have all lost their jobs “for nothing.”…………
Overwhelmed law enforcement protected the courthouse, but Sam’s business and many others were left at the mercy of the mob. “I’m a taxpayer,” said Sam, clearly distraught that law enforcement did nothing to protect his business. “This is not the America I came into,” the shattered man said. “What did we do to deserve all this?” he asked. “I’m a minority too. I’m a brown person. I have nothing to do with this.” Sam and his family set up a Go Fund Me page, which at this moment, has raised a little over $10,000, nowhere close to the over $2 million raised for Blake.
After it was clear that law enforcement did not have the resources to protect people like Sam, Steil “got to work.” On Tuesday morning he said he was able to get through to President Trump within “8 minutes.” Steil told the president that Kenosha was in desperate need of resources and reinforcements. President Trump then reached out to Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, extending him an offer for aid, which Evers refused.
For three nights, Kenosha experienced dangerous rioting. It wasn’t until three individuals were shot and two died that Evers accepted help from President Trump. “It’s pretty darn clear who demonstrated leadership and who did not,” said Steil. Since federal agents and national guardsmen were sent to Kenosha, there has been relative peace in the city.
The overwhelming consensus among Kenoshans is that violent rioters did not come from their city. “Kenosha locals did not do this to their town, man!” said Jason, who came to Kenosha to check on his family.
Grupos de Autodefensas Para Mi!
I think we’re going to see a lot more of this.
And for those places where things have still been peaceful, neighborhoods should have serious discussions about having plans like this ‘sitting on the shelf’ in case it becomes necessary.
Just consider; Last week I’d be confident that no one in Kenosha had any idea what was about to happen. Now consider what might occur in your city in the same circumstances.
Armed neighborhood watch group forms to protect Kenosha subdivision
About a 10-minute drive from Downtown Kenosha, two men stood this week with AR-15 firearms protecting their subdivision.
The armed men were Jason and Gilbert, part of a group of about 10 residents of the subdivision that have been out nights since Tuesday protecting their neighborhood in light of the unrest in Kenosha.
Despite the we-mean-business message the group conveys to passing motorists, The men were anything but threatening Thursday night. They were sincere in their concern for their neighbors and city. Continue reading “”
Guardian stops intruder at Central Florida high school, had flare gun and cocaine in his possession
LEESBURG, Fla. – A guardian at a Central Florida high school confronted an intruder on Thursday, according to officials.
A spokesperson for the Lake County School District confirmed to FOX 35 News that a school guardian at Leesburg High School confronted a man he saw jump a fence and come onto campus on Thursday morning.
They said that law enforcement was immediately called and the person was arrested.
According to an arrest report, 30-year-old Jabari Scott had a flare gun in his right waistband but it contained a 410 shotgun shell in the barrel, “ready to fire.” An additional shotgun shell, nine rounds of .380 ammunition, one 9mm round, one .223 round, and one 12 gauge shotgun slug shell were also in the man’s possession, investigators said.
In addition, police said that Scott had a white, powdery substance on him too, which tested positive for cocaine. It was said to be in five, small Ziploc-style bags. He also had an unidentified brown powder substance on him, which did not test positive for heroin or meth.
The Leesburg Police Department said that Scott claimed that the items listed above were actually his little brother’s and that he did not want him to get caught with them.
No one was reportedly hurt and everyone is safe.
Oh, we’re already awake, it’s just that we’re not making a big deal about being awake…..yet.
BLUF:
In the big Left Coast cities, citizens have almost no ability to arm themselves to protect their families or property, but once you wander out past the city limits, you find those still in possession of their 2nd Amendment rights (and their testicles) who are ready, willing, and able to stand up to the lawlessness and say very loudly and clearly, “Not here.”
In several instances, Antifa has been very promptly and swiftly (and sometimes violently) ejected from towns or neighborhoods who knew what their intentions were and collectively decided to take a stand. Those stories are wonderful to hear, because to me it means that regular people — you know, those crazy people who have jobs, families, responsibilities, maybe faith in God and a love of their country — are starting to tire of the violence and overall nonsense.
In recent weeks, not only have we seen some very large holes punched in the narrative of what happened to George Floyd, but we’ve also seen the very thin veil come off, as the “peaceful protests” by Black Lives Matter and Antifa rapidly devolved into perhaps the worst string of violent riots the country has ever seen. As of this writing, the city of Portland, Oregon has been host to violent riots for 86 days straight — nearly three months of chaos.
As we all know, violence in the name of outrage (or really in the name of anything) is nothing new for the Left. No one is quicker to protest violence by smashing your face with a brick than the tolerant, loving Left. No one understands better than the Left that the way to fight perceived racism in America is with even stronger and more brazen racism. No one — not even L. Frank Baum — could construct a better Straw Man to rail against than the Left, and they’ve built one to rival Burning Man against President Trump (see Trump as racist, sexist, homophobe, Islamaphobe, et al).
None of this is a surprise to anyone who is actually paying attention, regardless of what side you vote for. If you don’t see how lawless and dangerous the riots have become, then you’re not willing to see. Continue reading “”
Staying Alive in the Brave New World
Michael Bane
Okay kids, let’s make some assumptions here…you are free to accept or reject them as you see fit:
• We have fully entered a new phase of “acceptable” violence. What we now see is “recreational arson,” that is, the setting of fires with the inherent risk to human life for fun. Remember when you were a kid and how thrilling setting off fireworks was for you? This is the exact some thing, kicked, as Emeril might say, up a notch.
• One major political party and their farthest left members fully support this violence, because they see it as the best chance for wholesale social change, e.g [no Michael, that’s i.e. ] the Socialist States of America (or some other similar euphemism for fascism, which is what we are really looking at here).
They are correct. Historically, times of massive uncertainty offers a narrow window for massive political/government change. The other side understands that this is “The Year of the Jackpot” [Refer: Robert Heinlein], and they are all-in.
• Yes, we have seen this kind of urban violence before in the late 1960s/early 1970s, but what is different this time is that in the earlier case there was among most citizens an agreement about what America was, a consensus of the exceptionality of the U.S., if you will. That does not exist today. Rather, well before the China Virus and the riots, the two Americas, one red and one blue, were already locked in what has been called — fairly, I think — a “Cold Civil War.”
• Maybe if we all take a deep breath, calm down and relax, we’ll come through this. But maybe not. “Maybe” is a very big word. As we have said on THE BEST DEFENSE, self-defense is always a compromise, a balance of risk/reward. If we apply that same thinking to our current situation, we see the fallacy in “relax.” If we relax and the current crisis just fades away, everything is cool If we relax and are, in fact, wrong, we lose the country, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the vote, our guns and maybe even our lives. The teeter-totter is wildly weighted on only one end.
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, given those assumptions, what do we need to know as we face the Brave New World? I have been thinking about that a lot and talking to my team, who I believe are the best in the world at what they do. If we immediately move down to a “tactical,” as opposed to “strategic” level, here are some thoughts. Once again, feel free to either accept them or reject them out of hand. None of us have any words on a marble tablets delivered down from a mountaintop:
St. Louis Couple Who Defended Home with Guns Offer Warning at RNC
The St. Louis couple who brandished guns to protect their home from Black Lives Matter protesters two months ago spoke on opening night of the Republican National Convention, warning that if Democrats win in November, American suburbs will be in trouble.
Yet in the first paragraph of its report, Reuters said the couple—Mark and Patricia McCloskey—repeated “unfounded claims by President Donald Trump that Democrats will destroy America’s suburbs.”
As if to contradict Reuters, Black congressional candidate Kim Klacik appeared in a video in which she strolled through the Baltimore neighborhood she hopes to represent as a Republican, showing the decay that has occurred under more than 50 years of Democrat control. According to Fox News, her campaign advertisement has been viewed more than 11.4 million times.
Reuters might also check with the New York Post, which reported several days ago about BLM protesters who marched into a residential neighborhood “demanding that white residents give up their homes.” Continue reading “”
“I live for this event. I really do,” Moner said. “There’s nothing like seeing a woman pull the trigger on a firearm for the very first time. It’s like a light just goes off in her. It’s a moment of enlightenment.”
Detroit Women Flock to Gun Training.
Tanisha Moner has had a gun pointed at her twice in her life. Once by two strangers who kidnapped, robbed, and sexually assaulted her when she was 17. And, again, by another robber as she worked a management shift at a restaurant.
The traumatic experiences left her scarred, afraid of guns, shuddering at the sound of a firework and popped balloon. That changed the day she decided to face her fears and showed up for a gun-carry class at a local range.
“Succumbing to your own fear is the only thing that can stop you from doing anything you want to do,” Moner told the Washington Free Beacon.
She said that first gun-safety training class years ago helped her overcome her fear and ignited a passion to help others overcome their own fears. Continue reading “”
And the number one state with most NICS checks so far this year is…….
(The Center Square) – Illinois topped the list of all states for firearm background checks so far this year, and is already on pace to blow last year’s numbers out of the water. And reports persist of people waiting beyond the three-day waiting period to pick up the guns they’ve purchased.
There are also more than 143,000 Firearm Owner Identification, or FOID card, applicants still waiting for their cards to be processed by Illinois State Police.
A state Representative says this is tantamount to civil rights being infringed.
Monthly records from the FBI’s NICS Firearm Background Checks report show in the first seven months of the year, there have been nearly 4.6 million checks. That dwarfs every other state, with only Kentucky coming close with 2.2 million checks from January through July. Continue reading “”
BLUF:
NASA knows about only a fraction of near-Earth objects (NEOs) like this one. Many do not cross any telescope’s line of sight, and several potentially dangerous asteroids have snuck up on scientists in recent years.
If the wrong one slipped through the gaps in our NEO-surveillance systems, it could kill tens of thousands of people.
An Asteroid Just Made The Closest Earth Fly-by on Record, And We Didn’t See It Coming.
A car-size asteroid flew within about 1,830 miles (2,950 kilometers) of Earth on Sunday.
That’s a remarkably close shave – the closest ever recorded, in fact, according to asteroid trackers and a catalogue compiled by Sormano Astronomical Observatory in Italy.
Because of its size, the space rock most likely wouldn’t have posed any danger to people on the ground had it struck our planet. But the close call is worrisome nonetheless, since astronomers had no idea the asteroid existed until after it passed by.
“The asteroid approached undetected from the direction of the Sun,” Paul Chodas, the director of NASA’s Centre for Near Earth Object Studies, told Business Insider.
“We didn’t see it coming.” Continue reading “”
FORT WORTH, Texas (KXAN) — In a news conference on Tuesday, Gov. Greg Abbott expressed his disapproval for the City of Austin’s decision to transition funding out of Austin Police Department — and announced a proposal stating that any Texas cities that defund their police from now on will have their ability to increase property taxes frozen.
It comes in the wake of efforts by Austin and many other large cities to strip away money and responsibilities from local police departments, a move many conservatives have criticized.
“When crime is on the rise, the last thing we should do is defund law enforcement — and yet that is exactly what the City of Austin did… defunding police puts residents in danger and it invites lawlessness into our communities,” said Abbott. Continue reading “”
Students demand university offer ‘safe’ rides home at night after defunding police
Binghamton University announced in June that they are reallocating a portion of the campus police department’s budget to other campus services such as “mental health.” Just two months later, students are now petitioning the university to provide them with car rides home at night to make them “feel safe.”
Specifically, students at Binghamton are calling for the school to resume its “Safe Ride” program.
Safe Ride is a form of on-campus transportation provided by the university from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. during the school year. If students feel unsafe walking on the campus between these hours, they can call this service and be driven to their destination. Continue reading “”
Philadelphia is seeing an increase in shootings so the far-left City Council and police organized a ‘home gun-check campaign’ urging residents to turn in their firearms.
Makes sense.
Voluntary gun buyback programs and other programs aimed at urging residents to voluntarily turn in their firearms would only increase violence because it keeps criminals armed and disarms law abiding citizens. Continue reading “”
Granted that Portland is a hotbed of these riots and lack of police protection, but their experience should be educational. Have you ‘sand tabled’ – as in worked out in advance – what you and yours will do if in the same situation, and then be in the process, or completed your preparations?
Over 60 Portland 911 calls go unheeded overnight as police respond to riot
More than 60 emergency calls to police went unheeded overnight in Portland as officers were preoccupied with hundreds of demonstrators downtown and were pelted by rocks.
On the 80th consecutive night of protests, the Portland Police Bureau declared a riot around midnight Sunday after a crowd of hundreds had blocked traffic for three hours by the Penumbra Kelly Building in the 4700 block of East Burnside Street, trespassed on the closed property and engaged in “violent, tumultuous conduct.” Continue reading “”
The most revealing poll of all: gun sales
For decades, the Democratic party has wanted to abrogate the Second Amendment, to ban the sale of guns of any and all calibers, sizes, shapes and potential uses. They have long sought to limit the amount of ammo per gun and were just foiled again on that score.
The left has yet to realize the obvious, that criminals do not obey laws of any kind, least of all gun laws. So deluded are the gun-banning Democrats, they do not believe that Americans have the right to defend themselves against said criminals. These Democrats who want to run our lives all have armed security themselves, but we peons are, in their warped view, are to be forever denied the rights they bestow upon themselves.
Like the imbecilic Beto O’Rourke before her, Kamala Harris advocates gun confiscation; she wants the tyrannical government she and Joe are promoting to go into our homes and seize our legally-obtained weapons of self-defense.
Like Hitler, Stalin and Mao, seizing the firearms of the citizenry is the first step toward despotism. But the left misjudges the spirit of Americans who have escaped being indoctrinated by the anti-American, anti-constitutionalism that the left in academia and the media have been pushing for decades. Most of us take the Constitution and its accompanying Bill of Rights very seriously. Both have served this nation well for two-hundred and forty-four years. No self-righteous, virtue-signaling political lefty elitist is going to convince Americans who support the Constitution that the government has the right to confiscate their guns.
Well before Biden’s selection of Harris as his running mate, in the first half of 2020, gun sales have increased by 95%, (ten million guns), ammunition sales are up by 139%.
The numbers eclipse all of 2019. The highest increase is among black men and women, 58.2%.
Can you blame them? The wanton violence that has plagued Democrat-run cities like Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago (homicides up 139%), New York (13% increase in shooting incidents, 23% increase in homicides), Seattle, D.C., Los Angeles, Atlanta, etc. over the past several months with the blessings of the Democrat governors and mayors that run them has taught law-abiding blacks that the police are being driven from these cities, betrayed by the elected leaders charged with enforcing the law. Violent crime has spiked in all those places. Continue reading “”
Couldn’t be the riots, looting and such could it? nahhhhh.
Survey: Gun Control Support Down Double Digits from Last Year.
A Rasmussen Reports survey shows likely voter support for gun control has dropped double digits since this time last year.
According to the survey, 52 percent of likely voters support stricter gun control now versus the 64 percent who supported it a year ago, and the 56 percent who supported it in years prior to that.
Forty-seven percent of likely voters “say they or someone in their household now owns a gun,” and among those likely voters in gun-owning households 27 percent “say they or someone in their family has purchased one within the last six months.”
On July 1, Breitbart News reported that the first six months of 2020 witnessed 6 consecutive records for firearm background checks.
In other words, January 2020 set the record for the most background checks ever conducted in the month of January, February 2020 set the record for the most in February, March for the most in March, and so on all the way through June.
June 2020 not only set the record for background checks in the month of June, but the most background checks in a single month, period. FBI numbers showed 3,931,607 NICS checks conducted in June, which beat the previous single month record of 3,740,688 checks, set in March 2020.
Record-Setting Interest in Self-Defense
Two trend lines related to our issue have diverged in a remarkable way that indicates that firearms and the 2nd Amendment are fundamental American mainstays. We’ve covered the string of record-breaking NICS background check numbers since the onset of the pandemic, and July NICS data continues that trend. New data from Gallup shows that gun control has slid further down Americans’ list of most important issues, and a deeper dive into NICS data suggests that new gun owners and the need for self-defense are driving the 2020 surge. Continue reading “”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM PANDEMIC PANIC?
ABOVE ALL ELSE, IT SCARED THE GUN CONTROL CROWD!
Want to frighten the gun prohibition lobby?
Declare a pandemic and watch legions of fence-sitting non-gun owners scramble to be first in line at the nearest gun store, then watch their facial expressions when they discover buying guns really isn’t as easy or haphazard as they’ve been led to believe.
Disappointment and worry are great motivations to change one’s philosophy, especially when it might involve personal preservation. Every new gun owner can translate to a new rights activist, which means one less gun-control extremist. Continue reading “”
Readers respond: Gun rights aren’t ‘so-called’
A recent letter writer believes Americans’ “so-called ‘gun rights’ ” should be included in the national conversation on violence. (“Include gun control in the conversation,” Aug. 3). The right of Americans to own and carry guns is far from “so-called.” They are enumerated in the U.S. Constitution and in Oregon’s Constitution and have been recognized and upheld by the Supreme Court with the Heller decision in 2008.
As of this writing, Portland has recorded its deadliest month in the past 30 years (“Portland police record highest number of death investigations in single month in more than three decades,” July 30). Stabbings, shootings, assaults and home invasions are a regular occurrence. There is a call for law enforcement to be defunded, and ineffectual leaders have hobbled the police bureau for their own political gain. Gun sales are at an all-time high, background checks take many days instead of several minutes, and ammunition is in short supply. This is a result of concerned Americans wishing to protect themselves from violent criminals when local governments refuse to.
One can be displeased by the fact that Americans enjoy a unique right to self-preservation, but to deny the Second Amendment and falsely claim the right to keep and bear arms as “so-called” is intellectually dishonest. Law-abiding gun owners have every right to arm themselves. Thankfully, the Founding Fathers added no provisions in the Bill of Rights protecting the timid from never encountering things that make them uncomfortable or that offend delicate sensibilities.
Norwood Paladin, Portland