Month: January 2020

Alabama lawmaker prepares bill to allow deadly force in church for self-defense

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBMA) – A proposed new law aims to help protect places of worship in Alabama.

One state lawmaker says he’s preparing a bill to allow the use of deadly force in church for self- defense and the defense of others.

Rep. Lynn Greer (R- Rogersville) tells ABC 33/40 he expects this year’s bill to be similar to the one he filed the past two years. But he says this year he’s been working with the District Attorneys Association and the Attorney General’s Office to improve it.

Greer expects the bill to allow a person to use deadly physical force in self-defense or the defense of another if that force is used against an aggressor committing or attempting to commit a crime involving death, serious physical injury, robbery in the first degree, or kidnapping in the first degree on the premises of a church.

Greer expects his bill to include training from sheriff’s offices for church security members, and that it would provide immunity from criminal prosecution or civil action for a person using such deadly force.

Pastor Darryl Warren believes that bill could help, as he works on security for New Saint James Baptist Church in Birmingham.

“In church, it’s disheartening to know one day we may even need metal detectors in church, but this is where we’ve gotten and it’s disheartening to know someone would come into the church and do harm in God’s house but we live in a fallen world,” said Warren.

He has a eight person security team and nine cameras installed, monitoring inside and outside.

“A third phase might even be hired security if it comes to that and then having the sheriff’s department to come in and do some training as well,” he said. “So, we want to cover all the bases we can and make the members feel as secure as they can while they’re worshiping.”

Defense attorney Ben Preston believes the law already covers the church.

“I feel you have the right to defend yourself in certain situations no matter where you’re at,” he told us.

But says adding specific language could strengthen that.

He does have concerns about what the immunity would include and who would determine who and what qualifies.

“If they’re just going to give blanket immunity, it sounds like they would never be charged period,” he said. “Which would, then they’re not being charged, they’re not bonding out, they’re not having to wait for the stand your ground hearing, waiting for the judge to decide if they’re going to prosecute.”

Preston notes that we are still waiting for the bill to be released to read the exact language and learn what will be included in the immunity section.

Pastor Warren says immunity may offer assurance to his security team.

“That they are not going to be held liable for carrying out the act of defending someone in church,” he said. “So, if you have legislation to take care of that, it kind of removes the sense of- I’m worrying about if I do this, what’s going to happen to me.”

Greer got his bill through the House in 2018, but it died in the Senate.

If his bill does make it through the House in 2020, Senator Arthur Orr (R- Decatur) tells ABC 33/40 he plans to sponsor it in the Senate.

“We should help places of worship protect themselves,” Orr told ABC 33/40.

He says the state doesn’t need to encourage reckless behavior, but that he’s looking at what could be done to still add a layer of protection.

Orr added that he’s looking at what other states have passed, including Texas.

Virginia gun store says firearms, ammunition, and magazines flying off shelves with upswing in cash purchases

Gun-grabbers; The best gun salesmen in the U.S.

With Virginia Democrats taking over all branches of state government, a firearms store owner in the state says sales of guns, magazines, and ammunition are up 200%, and more of his customers are paying in cash.

“This is the largest Christmas and November, December that we’ve had, basically, since Trump has come on board. The only other person that was a better salesman right now is when we had President Obama,” said Jerry Rapp, owner of SpecDive Tactical, in Alexandria, comparing the administrations of President Trump and his White House predecessor, Barack Obama.

“Every time [Obama] turned around he was going to ban something or make something illegal. But even that isn’t even close to the amount of sales we’re selling right now of magazines, of guns, of every kind of gun from pistol, rifle, shotguns, to AR platforms” and ammunition, Rapp told the Washington Examiner. “We can’t keep it in stock.”

Since Democrats took the majorities of both chambers in Virginia’s state legislature after big wins in the November elections, gun control proposals that include bans on “assault-style” weapons, restrictions on magazine capacity, universal background checks, and restrictions to one gun a month purchases have all been brought forth.

Same at the federal level, with House Democrats entering their second year in the majority.

Virginia freshman Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton, who was previously a state senator, has proposed legislation in Congress to use credit card data to track gun purchases. The bill faces long odds on Capitol Hill. News about her idea has made it to Virginia firearms customers.

Rapp said his clients are increasingly concerned about privacy issues. Since the November elections, they’ve been purchasing with cash rather than credit cards.

Rapp, whose business includes gun safety training, says that some of the proposed legislation also affects his course instruction.

“From a gun place, the biggest [proposed legislation] that affects me right now, because we’re a training company that sells guns, is if you are a trainer or if you train your son or daughter, that you could become a felon, but as a training place, we do safety,” Rapp said. “We do training both from a basic pistol, rifle, shotgun to advanced combat shootings and tactical shootings for the military, law enforcement, three-letter agencies.”

Homeland Security Chief Orders Review Of State Laws Allowing Driver’s Licenses For Illegal Aliens

Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ordered a review of state laws that allow illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses and restrict data sharing with federal immigration authorities.

Wolf on Tuesday ordered all of the components of DHS to conduct a department-wide review of the state laws to determine how they affect their day-to-day operations, according to a memo obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The DHS chief’s directive indicates he is prepared to take aim against the state laws.

“Accordingly, I am instructing each operational component to conduct an assessment of the impact of these laws, so that the Department is prepared to deal with and counter these impacts as we protect the homeland,” Wolf’s memo read.

The memo follows implementation of New York’s “Green Light” law, and passage of a similar bill in New Jersey in December. Both laws not only allow illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses, but also restrict DMV data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security.

In New York, in particular, numerous county clerks have expressed reservation over the fact that illegal aliens can obtain a driver’s license with foreign documentation — arguing that such a policy paves the way for voter fraud, identity theft, and even terrorism. DHS had already voiced its opposition to a provision in the New York law that prohibits Homeland security Investigations, a division of ICE, from accessing DMV information — even if the agency is investigating serious crimes.

“Laws like New York’s greenlight law have dangerous consequences that have far reaches beyond the DMV,” DHS spokeswomen Heather Swift said Tuesday. “These types of laws make it easier for terrorists and criminals to obtain fraudulent documents and also prevent DHS investigators from accessing important records that help take down child pornography and human trafficking rings and combat everything from terrorism to drug smuggling.”

LIMESTONE COUNTY WOMAN PULLS PISTOL ON MAN TRYING TO ATTACK HER ON I-65

An Elkmont woman pulled her pistol on a man after law enforcement says he chased her and tried to run her vehicle off I-65.

34-year-old Charles Baker is now at the Limestone County Jail on domestic violence reckless endangerment and possession of controlled substance charges. Deputies said an altercation between him and woman got physical on Sunday.

The fight began at his home on Roberts Road in Elkmont.

The female victim tried to get away from Baker by leaving the residence.

Court documents say Baker followed the victim up Interstate 65 North and ran her vehicle off the road while chasing her. It also says the incident could have caused injury or damage to the victim or other drivers.

Baker tried to stop her and get in front of her vehicle. That’s when deputies say she pulled her pistol on him. He fled the scene after seeing her gun.

Deputies later found Baker at the intersection of Thatch and Clem Roads. They searched his vehicle and found meth in his car.

Baker’s bond is set at $7,500 and he has a court date set on Feb. 13.

Man shot by off-duty Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy

An off-duty Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy shot a man in the torso after he found the suspect inside his personal vehicle, authorities said Tuesday.

The 25-year-old man was taken to the hospital for treatment and is expected to survive, officials said. His condition was not immediately known.

The deputy, whose name was not released, was not hurt, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.

The man allegedly lunged toward the deputy after getting out of the vehicle, the Sheriff’s Department said. The deputy then shot the man, striking him once, though it was not released how many shots were fired.

Suspected Robber Trying To Steal Cell Phone Shot By Victim

Police Wednesday were investigating an early morning incident during which one man allegedly attempted to rob another of his cell phone, and was hospitalized after being shot by the attempted robbery victim.

It happened about 6:30 a.m. at 3100 45th Street in the Swan Canyon neighborhood of City Heights, San Diego Police Department Officer Dino Delimitros said.

“An argument between two men turned violent when one of the men attempted to rob the other of his cell phone,” said Delimitros. “The robbery victim produced a handgun and shot the other man once in the upper body.”

Delimitros said the shooter called 911 to report the incident “but fled the scene prior to police arriving.”

“The shooting victim was transported to a local hospital where he underwent emergency surgery and was in stable condition today and is expected to survive,” Delimitros said.

Communist China: ‘Private Ownership Of Guns’ In U.S. ‘Serious Problem,’ Must ‘Change’

I have a message for the Chinese Communist Crap-For-Brains leadership.
‘You can Osculate my Gluteus Maximus, you commie SOBs’

Communist China, which currently has millions of people locked away in concentration camps, said in state-controlled media this week that the Second Amendment is a “serious problem” and that there needs to be “change” in how the American public views “private ownership of guns.”

The Global Times, which is Chinese state-run media, published the op-ed after a good guy with a gun in Texas stopped a shooting in a church.

China mocked the United States, saying that “shootings are shocking in a US allegedly governed by law”:

Private gun ownership is a tradition from the early days at the founding of the US. In a modern society, the problems created by this tradition have already exceeded the benefits. …

American society has already seen serious problems caused by the private ownership of guns, but their massive number has contributed to an enormous inertia. Many interest groups have benefited from it and some ordinary people have truly gained a sense of safety. To change this habit which has lasted hundreds of years, tremendous political courage and a rearrangement of interests is required.

Facts have proved that the US system is unable to handle the intricacies of countless issues around guns including politics, economics, law and order and public psychology. The country can neither manage the safe storage and use of so many guns owned by ordinary people, nor can it establish a new national system that bans or strictly restricts guns. It cannot even form an overwhelming opinion regarding gun issues.

China’s attack on the Second Amendment comes after Hong Kong protesters have requested to have their own Second Amendment so they can defend themselves from the oppressive communist Chinese government.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that Chinese dictator Xi Jinping had received a title that was normally reserved for Communist China’s founder Mao Zedong, who is the most prolific mass murderer in human history:

During a two-day meeting that ended Friday, chaired by Mr. Xi, the party’s 25-member Politburo hailed his policies as visionary and described him as the renmin lingxiu, or “people’s leader,” a designation that directly echoes an accolade most closely associated with Communist China’s founder Mao Zedong.

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) fired back at Xi in a statement that highlighted just a few of the horrifying human rights abuses that communist China is inflicting on its citizens. Sasse wrote:

If Chairman Xi is the “people’s leader,” who are the people? When Chairman Xi talks about “the people,” he doesn’t mean the Uyghurs in torture camps. When Chairman Xi talks about “the people,’ he doesn’t mean the Falun Gong prisoners whose organs are harvested. When Chairman Xi talks about “the people,” he doesn’t mean the baby girls who were left to die under China’s one-child policy. When Chairman Xi talks about “the people,” he means what every communist hack before him has meant: not the people but the communist party.

As The Daily Wire has highlighted, “China has been under intense scrutiny as the communist nation has millions of Muslims locked in concentration camps, is harvesting organs from detainees, and has created a massive surveillance state that it is reportedly exporting to countries around the world.”

Indiana churches set up security teams after law changes to allow guns in church

Reading this, you’ll see there’s still a lot of “it surely couldn’t happen here” still going around. A man with a ‘background in law enforcement’ and graphic examples of every size of congregation having been attacked, and he still has some kind of philosophical problem with providing armed security? This is the delusional type that needs a ‘cluebat’ upside his head until he finally sees the way of truth & knowledge.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — It’s a debate that has sparked new legislation across the country—should people be allowed to carry guns in churches? Indiana State Senator Jack Sandlin says absolutely.

“We need to let everybody in Indiana know they have the right to protect themselves,” Sandlin said.

Sandlin authored legislation that was signed into law earlier this year.  It allows people to carry guns into church even if there’s a school or daycare on the property, which before the law, would have been considered a felony.

“I’ve had conversations with several different churches that have started to set up security teams within their churches as a result of the passage of the statute,” Sandlin said.

On Sunday at a church in Texas, a man pulled out a gun, and opened fire. He killed two people before a member of the church’s security team took out his own gun and killed the shooter with a single shot. Over 200 people were inside the church.

“If they hadn’t had an armed security team in the church, that could’ve gone on for a number of minutes, and then casualty count goes up pretty dramatically,” Sandlin said.

Incidents like this are why some local churches now put a priority on security.

Jack Dodd attends a small church near Kokomo. Dodd and his pastor recently went to an active shooter training. They have plans in place, but don’t yet have armed security.

“We have two individuals, myself and another individual, that sit in the back of the church always in the same spot, very near the door so that we can challenge anybody who walks in,” Dodd said.

Dodd has a background in law enforcement and says he has plenty experience handling firearms. However, he says he still has not decided to bring his gun to church.

“We are a small country church, and we have talked about that,” Dodd said. “We’ve been a little bit resistant to it because you just don’t feel like you need a weapon in church… but then you hear about these kind of situations that come up.”

Sandlin hopes this law will remind Hoosiers they can protect themselves in church, but he also warns that a trained security team may be the best way to protect the congregation.

“I wouldn’t recommend just telling people to bring their guns to church,” Sandlin said. “I think that you have to have a security survey, I think you have to have a plan and know how you’re going to respond.”

“Just having somebody with a firearm is not the answer,” Dodd said. “It must be trained individuals.”

If Jews want peace, they must prepare to defend themselves
“Si vis pacem, para bellum.”
If you want peace, prepare for war. —Roman proverb

According to CNN, the man suspected of stabbing Jews during a Chanukah celebration at a rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York was taken into custody with “blood all over him.” However, Pamela Geller has reported on Twitter what neither CNN nor any of the other anti-Semitic media outlets would dare to print: “Monsey Machete Assailant Is Recent Muslim Convert and May Be Linked to Another BRUTAL Synagogue Stabbing.” Likely, the man’s head was filled with verses from the Koran and the Sunna, like this one from Sahih Muslim 41:6981, 6983: “[A] stone says: Muslim, here is a Jew behind me; kill him!”

So why were there no defensive guns at the event, when there were reportedly 100 Jews at the rabbi’s Chanukah celebration? There certainly was armed defense present at a Christian worship service, in readiness for a possible attack, in Texas! This Chanukah season, an appropriate question may be this: “Why have Texas Christians acted more in line with the example of Judah Maccabee than New York Jews?”

“If someone comes to kill you, arise quickly and kill him.” —Talmud, Sanhedrin 1994,2,72a

It is more than a source of embarrassment to many Jews, this author included, that numerous Jewish political and religious leaders support victim disarmament laws, which go against long established Jewish laws, the most basic of which is the commandment to “choose life, so that you and your children may live.” Throughout Jewish history, there have been threats requiring armed defense to preserve the Jewish people and their religion. The biggest threat — from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich — has always come from the state and its representatives. It should not be lost on Jews that Joe Biden, about as devoted to state power as one can get, criticized Texas governor Greg Abbott for signing a bill that allows Texans to defend themselves against attack in their places of worship. Clear-headed Jews thank God that Donald Trump, perhaps the most philo-Semitic president of all time, is chief executive, rather than a statist Democrat, like Biden, who would disarm the people, allowing them to be murdered in their synagogues and churches, as well as in their own homes.

It is sad that so many Jews have forgotten their history and have chosen to put their trust in left-wing leaders who choose death over life (in the tradition of such Jewish leaders as Max Naumann and Hans Joachim Schoeps, in Hitler’s Germany). Jews must stop trusting in the government to protect them and, instead, need to take responsibility by invoking their Second Amendment right to self-defense. As the Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership (JPFO) so aptly put it, “[t]he main threat to Jews in America, as elsewhere, is a government ‘gone bad.’ Jewish ‘leaders’ who emphasize victimhood to unify Jews are misguided. Jewish ‘leaders’ could strengthen Judaism by teaching proper observance” of Jewish law.

“You shall not murder.” —Exodus 20:13

The above commandment does not prohibit the righteous taking of a human life, only the immoral taking of a human life. Properly translated, this negative commandment reads, “You shall not murder.” The positive corollary of this commandment would go something like this: “You shall use deadly force, if necessary, to protect innocent life.” Thus, all righteous citizens in a republic, to the greatest extent possible and appropriate, should possess the proper means by which to fulfill their shared obligation to defend the lives of their loved ones and fellow citizens.

“If a burglar be found breaking in, and be struck dead, it is not murder.” —Exodus 22:2

Jewish law has always required the active defense of every innocent life. According to God’s commandment, in Exodus 22:2, a thief should be proactively attacked, to defend against the deadly threat he poses. If the thief were to die of his wounds, the defender’s blood is not to be shed as a penalty for having justifiably taken the life of a criminal. A person who is capable of defending the innocent but chooses not to do so is guilty of a tremendous wrongdoing. Also, he who actively enables the deaths of others, by supporting government-sponsored victim-disarmament (AKA “gun control”), has blood on his hands — the blood of those wrongly murdered, with no chance of rightfully defending themselves against their criminal aggressors, be those assailants lone outlaws or state actors.

A government official’s breaking of his oath to defend the Constitution — which includes the Second Amendment — is a wicked deed, akin to endorsing the same types of fascist victim disarmament policies enforced by Hitler’s criminal gang of National Socialists.

Besides Joe Biden, another potential dealer of death on the national stage, in 2019, has been Governor “Blackface” Northam of Virginia. Northam is planning to arrest and incarcerate legal gun-owners, to further his unconstitutional — indeed, criminal — crackdown against law-abiding Virginians. This includes Jews, of course, who share the common desire with their fellow Virginians simply to live in peace. But with the police busy and, therefore, usually arriving too late to a crime scene to defend human life, firearms need to be available to ensure the security and tranquility of Jewish communities.

The old Roman idea “Si vis pacem, para bellum” remains true to this day. If Jews want peace, they must prepare to defend themselves.

 

Religious People Think Democrats Will Strip Our Rights Because It’s True
A professor claims religious people are afraid of atheists and Democrats because they’re projecting ignorance and hatred. Maybe instead religious people just follow the news.

“White evangelicals fear atheists and Democrats would strip away their rights. Why?” asks a recent op-ed in the Washington Post. The op-ed author, Paul A. Djupe, a professor at Denison University and scholar with the Public Religion Research Institute, offered two completely out-of-touch reasons.

The first is “because that’s what they’re hearing, quite explicitly, from conservative media, religious elites, partisan commentators and some politicians, including the president.” The second is an “inverted golden rule,” meaning white evangelical Protestants “express low levels of tolerance for atheists, which leads them to expect intolerance from atheists in return.”

It’s not about projection or an authoritarian impulse. Religious conservaties worry atheists and Democrats will strip their rights because they have repeatedly witnessed attempts, typically by Democrats, to strip them of their religious liberties.

Examples of Democrats’ attempts to gut religious liberties abound. Perhaps the most high-profile example was the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) federal mandate in 2011, as part of the Affordable Care Act, mandating that certain employers provide all FDA-approved contraceptives, including abortifacients, in their health insurance plans. The narrow religious exemption did not include religious nonprofits such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic order of nuns that manages homes for the elderly poor across America, nor businesses such as Hobby Lobby.

A district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled against the Little Sisters of the Poor, and it was only in 2016 before the U.S. Supreme Court that the liberties of the religious order were secured. Hobby Lobby won in a separate 2014 case.

Democrats Attack Religious Liberty in Law and Institutions

This is hardly the only recent example. Over the last decade and a half, a number of jurisdictions, including the state of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., have targeted Christian adoption agencies that refuse to place children with same-sex or unmarried couples. Many of these adoption agencies have since closed.

The pro-choice organization NARAL, a prominent supporter of Democratic candidates, opposes conscience laws that allow medical practitioners to exempt themselves from activities that violate their religious beliefs, such as abortion or euthanasia.

Several Democratic presidential candidates have declared their support for legislation that would prohibit employers — including Christian schools or organizations — from maintaining rules about their employees’ sexual behavior. When the media reported that Vice President Mike Pence’s wife Karen had taken a position at an evangelical Virginia school that prohibits employees and students from homosexual behavior, left-leaning secular media ruthlessly attacked her. A cake baker in suburban Denver, despite the U.S. Supreme Court upholding his religious liberty in 2018, is still facing harassment by the state of Colorado.

Federal law still prohibits employers discriminating based on a person’s religious beliefs or affiliation, but conservative Christians can read between the lines. If city, county, and state governments are willing to target people for their “bigoted” beliefs, and if left-leaning judges seem increasingly willing to rule against religious liberty, it’s hard to imagine governments will be objective, neutral arbiters in their hiring practices toward religious conservatives.

Much the same can be said regarding many of our nation’s education institutions. If a university either explicitly promotes or willfully ignores leftist activism that seeks to silence opposing viewpoints — such as Middlebury College’s treatment of Polish academic, politician, and devout Catholic Ryszard Legutko — it’s fair to assume such institutions will not be hiring anyone who reminds them of Legutko. We’d be foolish to think this doesn’t also apply to woke companies.

Djupe’s Conclusion Is Flawed

Djupe’s research polled a cross-section of American society, more than 2,500 people, which included a variety of religious and political beliefs. Respondents were asked whether certain selected groups should be permitted to exercise various liberties, such as giving speeches in the community, teaching in public schools, or running for public office.

As evidence of tolerance among atheists and Democrats, Djupe and fellow researcher and political scientist Ryan Burge discovered that 65 percent of atheists and 53 percent of Democrats who named Christian fundamentalists their least-liked group were willing to allow them to engage in three or more of these activities. This, Djupe notes, is a higher proportion with tolerance than the overall sample and a higher proportion than white evangelicals. Ergo, Djupe and Burge conclude evangelicals fear atheists and Democrats not because these groups intend to restrict their rights, but because religious conservatives aim to do this to their political enemies.

Perhaps, though, restrictions on conservative Christians giving speeches, teaching in public schools, or running for public office are not theoretical. Across the United States over the last generation, real-life people of faith have suffered the infringement of their religious freedom. Whether or not those doing the infringing are atheists is unclear, but they are almost always on the political left.

Democrats’ Attacks on Religious Liberties Are Nothing New

This is why white evangelicals are afraid Democrats will attack their religious liberty — because they already have been for years. It also largely explains why this same demographic remains electorally wedded to Republicans, including President Donald Trump.

Notice that in almost all the above examples, it has been the judicial branch slowing the tide of anti-religious liberty initiatives. This has been the case even when activist judges at one level are overruled by more conservative judges at a higher level of the court system.

Trump is appointing right-leaning federal judges at rapid rates. Thus far, he has appointed 50 judges to circuit court benches, double what President Barack Obama had achieved at this point in his first term. Judges, many religious conservatives wager, may be one of the most effective means of safeguarding religious liberty.

None of this is news. Conservatives, and certainly religious conservatives, have been talking for generations about the need for a conservative judiciary to prevent attacks on America’s most treasured freedoms. That liberal mainstream media and secular academia are allied in deflecting attention from this truth in favor of research aimed at maligning religious conservatives demonstrates how out of touch they remain. Who says they learned something after the 2016 presidential election?