Is it good to have democracy? Is it good to dumb culture down to the lowest common denominator? Is it good to have religion as a state religion or as a coercive mechanism to instill good behavior? All of these things that we wrestle with today were discussed by people who in some ways were not confused by technology, they were empirical. They just wrote down the world that they saw.
Victor Davis Hanson
— Matt_Archy (@Matt_Archy) October 25, 2022
Opinion: Gun control and the right to self-defense in a Culture of Death
Those in favor of gun control are right about one thing: there is no excuse for inaction. But they are wrongheaded in acting toward stricter but ultimately futile regulations.
As the nation continues to mourn the victims of the Uvalde massacre, and with old wounds aching over the sentencing of the Parkland shooter and the Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist trial, Catholics should be the ones who offer answers when it comes to gun violence.
Some legislators want to focus on gun ownership and gun control. But the remedy won’t be found there. Rather, the remedy is spiritual. The nation must realize that saving lives begins with returning sanctity to life in all its stages. And sometimes, as counterintuitive as it may seem to say so, it might, at times, actually take a gun to do that.
A common response to the continual tragedy of school shootings in the United States is to assert that if there are no guns, there will be no shootings. But this perspective is both impractical and misguided. Christians are still called to defend the lives of the helpless—and sometimes an opposing firearm is the best tool to accomplish that. To a virtuous person, the Second Amendment bestows the real potential to be a lifesaver. In these dark days, exercising the right to keep and bear arms may even be considered a responsibility where it is permissible.
As the Left makes arguments that gun control is about saving lives, Pope Francis and the American bishops have taken this tack as well. Though the USCCB’s emphasis is certainly on sensible measures (such as reasonable background checks), the push to have Congress tighten the legislation around the buying and selling of firearms ever since Columbine seems a little too in lockstep with the liberal sectors of government—such as their support for banning assault-style weapons and limiting handgun ownership.
In the wake of Uvalde, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago was particularly direct:
The Second Amendment, unlike the Second Commandment, did not come down from Sinai. There is an understanding that we all have in our hearts, engraved in our hearts, a natural law about the value of human life. And there is no amendment that can trump that.
His Eminence is both right and wrong. Yes, the right to bear arms is not a sacred right, as is the right to life. But there is an often-neglected angle of argument concerning that truth that responsible citizens bearing arms can save lives, and at certain times and situations, it does take an amendment to protect the lives that Cardinal Cupich affirms is a duty of natural law.
But, in fact, the criminals and even the criminally insane will often get their hands on firearms. Severe legislative restrictions, however, will keep many honest citizens unarmed, and that can lead to more unnecessary deaths as well. The bishops might say that being anti-gun is being pro-life, but allowing for the increasingly common scenario where the strong will take evil advantage over the weak is not pro-life at all.
Now, we’ve all heard from those people who don’t even want armed, in uniform, police resource officers in schools. These people are pro-criminal.
Of course, even if you do have armed security in a school, they have to have the fortitude to use their arms, not just stand around.
Good Guys with Guns End Monday Morning Attack at St. Louis School
A shooting at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School (CVPA) Monday morning shortly after nine was “quickly stopped” by police inside the school.
Fox2Now points out that “an adult female” and a teenager were killed in the shooting. The shooting suspect is deceased as well.
Police indicate there were seven active officers on the campus and there was “an exchange of gunfire” between the suspect and police. KMOV reports that the shooting suspect had a long gun and was “a man around 20 years old.”
At 9:47 a.m. St. Louis Public Schools tweeted: “Police are on site at Central Visual and Performing Arts this morning following reports of an active shooter and both CVPA and Collegiate are on lockdown. The shooter was quickly stopped by police inside CVPA. We have reports of 2 students injured and on the way to the hospital.”
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch notes, “David Williams, a math teacher at the school, said the school principal came over the loudspeaker around 9 a.m. and said the code word that indicates a school shooter is in the building.”
Williams said he then heard gunshots outside of his classroom.
FBI and DOJ must ‘remove’ records on people pressured into waiving away gun rights, Republicans say
EXCLUSIVE — Republicans are demanding the Justice Department and FBI confirm they have removed database records on people who secretly signed forms waiving away their rights to own, buy, or use firearms.
The firearms rights group Gun Owners of America in September called on the DOJ and the FBI to remove records related to the forms, which the Daily Caller reported were presented by FBI agents to at least 15 people. Republican members are now re-upping GOA’s request and urging Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray to hand over proof the FBI has halted usage of the “illegal and unconstitutional” form and removed signatory records, according to a Monday letter obtained by the Washington Examiner.
It is unclear who the people who signed the forms were since the FBI redacted names in documents GOA obtained as part of its lawsuit to compel the disclosure of records. The forms were provided to people at their homes and elsewhere between 2016 and 2019 by bureau agents in Maine, Michigan, and Massachusetts.
“Due to the recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests submitted by Gun Owners of America (GOA), and the resulting article from Gabe Kaminsky in The Daily Caller, Congress has been made aware of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) illegal usage of a form entitled ‘NICS Indices Self-Submission Form,'” the 15 Republicans, led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), wrote in the letter.
“We, the undersigned elected members of the United States House of Representatives, demand full accountability from all law enforcement agencies, including the FBI,” they added. “No government official — unelected, appointed, or even elected — has the right to infringe upon Second Amendment rights.”
Signatories, who were investigated for things including alleged violent threats in online chat rooms, were asked to identify as a “danger” to themselves or others or as lacking the “mental capacity adequately to construct or manage” their lives. They were also registered with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, according to the form.
Even though the form claims signing it was done “voluntarily,” Second Amendment attorneys previously told the Daily Caller there is a sense of pressure any time people must deal directly with FBI agents. The FBI told the Daily Caller on Sept. 16 that usage of the form was “discontinued” in December 2019, failing to clarify why such a decision was made.
New Low(y): Gun Controllers Register as Foreign Agents to Undermine American Freedom
Beginning last year, NRA-ILA has been keeping readers up to date with an ongoing effort by the Mexican government and domestic gun control supporters to attack the American firearms industry. According to a new report from Politico, this conspiracy to leverage a foreign sovereign to undermine an American constitutional right has become more formalized in recent days with the creation of a new advocacy group named Global Action on Gun Violence.
Back in August 2021, the Mexican government filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts against the most prominent U.S. gun manufacturers alleging that these heavily regulated businesses were somehow responsible for Mexico’s violent crime problem. The suit was the international version of a domestic gun control strategy from the 1990s, when anti-gun jurisdictions and avaricious plaintiff’s attorneys teamed up in an effort to bankrupt the U.S. firearms industry by holding companies accountable for the third-party criminal misuse of their products. This wild departure from long-established tort law eventually necessitated Congress enacting the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).
In an attempt to get around the PLCAA, the Mexican suit argued that the U.S. federal courts should ignore both U.S. law and the Second Amendment and instead rule against the gun companies under the laws of Mexico.
Some observers will find it ironic that Mexico has sought to exert sovereignty over foreign businesses in this manner when the Mexican government has failed to exercise sovereignty over its own purported territory. A 2020 Washington Post item stated,
In a classified study produced in 2018 but not previously reported, CIA analysts concluded that drug-trafficking groups had gained effective control over about 20 percent of Mexico, according to several current and former U.S. officials.
The Mexico suit was filed with the help of handgun prohibition group Brady (formerly Handgun Control, Inc.), and specifically longtime Brady counsel Jonathan Lowy. At the time, NRA pointed out, “That Brady would ally itself with a foreign government that has become virtually synonymous with corruption proves just how detached the gun control movement has become from the values and traditions that define America.”
Katie Hobbs won't say if she supports forcing Arizona kids to be vaccinated for Covid in order to attend school.
Her response was "uhhh…" pic.twitter.com/D5w4rSuu1Y
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) October 25, 2022
Sorry border Democrats, but this is the White House's response to the crisis that is going to sink your campaigns in the home stretch. https://t.co/k6xUClNVvU
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) October 24, 2022
If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government.
— Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist #28)
Susan Liebell, a political science professor at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, said that gun control provisions with large amounts of popular support are unlikely to advance in the current political environment.
“The way this should play out politically is that senators and representatives would be punished in elections because they don’t support the kind of gun safety laws that Americans want,” Liebell said. “However, there’s no evidence that Americans are willing to vote on gun safety the way they’re willing to vote on the economy.”
Liebell also pointed out that the conservative legal movement spent much of the last four decades building the Supreme Court majority that led to the Bruen decision, one that is not likely to go away anytime soon.
“We’re not really talking about history, we’re not really talking about the original interpretation of the Second Amendment, we’re talking about the number of votes that you have on the Supreme Court,” Liebell said.
— Michael Macagnone in Court rulings wipe out gun laws in wake of Supreme Court decision
Gun Control Not a Priority as Midterms Loom with Biden in Basement
A new Monmouth University poll released this week shows gun control is second from the bottom of a list of nine priority issues with the midterm elections just over two weeks away and American gun owners poised to help take Congress away from Democrats.
At the same time, Rasmussen’s Daily Presidential Tracking Poll shows President Joe Biden’s numbers still trailing, with 44 percent approving of his performance but 54 percent disapproving. This includes only 22 percent who “strongly approve” and 45 percent strongly disapproving.
The top issue concerning voters—certainly including gun owners—is inflation. Their concerns have jumped 9 points since last month, corresponding to the rise in inflation, including gasoline. During the fall months, outdoorsmen and women spend a fair amount of money on fuel just to get back and forth to the field, and then to operate generators and chainsaws. They also are paying more for groceries than at this time last year.
At the bottom of the list for voters is climate change, an indication that the Biden administration’s priorities are at odds with that of American consumers.
Crime is the third highest priority, the Monmouth survey revealed, which likely explains why increasing numbers of Americans are carrying or applying for licenses to carry in the 25 states where a license is still required. Fully half of the states no longer require carry permits or licenses.
It has not been a good year for the Democrats’ gun control agenda, which collided with the Constitution in June as the Supreme Court struck down a century-old restriction in New York requiring carry permit applicants to prove a “good cause” for needing to carry a defensive firearm. In the aftermath, the New York Legislature swiftly adopted a new scheme designed to get around, rather than comply with, the high court’s ruling.
But in recent days, federal judges have smacked down components of that legislation, declaring it unconstitutional. This week, the Second Amendment Foundation obtained a temporary restraining order from a federal judge in Buffalo, derailing places of worship to be “sensitive places” where even legally concealed handguns are prohibited. The speed with which Judge John L. Sinatra, Jr. handed down his TRO surprised many, and SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb was delighted. It took only three days for the judge to rule. SAF filed its initial lawsuit earlier this month.
“Ample Supreme Court precedent addressing the individual’s right to keep and bear arms—from Heller and McDonald to its June 22 decision in Bruen—dictates that New York’s place of worship restriction is…unconstitutional,” Judge Sinatra wrote.
Now, with the midterm elections looming and pollsters predicting Republicans could take over the House and possibly the U.S. Senate, the likelihood is increasing that Biden’s gun control agenda is about to crash.
A lot of people I know really liked their 70 grain , .223 TSX and 62 grain frangible bullets
History of Barnes Ammo
Fred Barnes founded his company, Barnes Bullets, in 1932. The company has since earned a solid reputation as a leader within the ammunition industry with its rifle ammo. Barnes manufactures bullets for practically every caliber in production, and they sell their fair share of custom creations, ideal for hunters and serious shooters in any situation.
The Long and Winding History of Barnes Ammunition Company
Like many American ammunition innovators, Fred Barnes began his business looking for a better way to do things. To that end, he started making ammunition in his basement in Bayfield, Colorado. He sold the company to Burford Corporation, which was based in Mayfield, Oklahoma. They then sold the company, which relocated once again to Montrose, Colorado, a bit of a homecoming for Barnes (which was eventually renamed Colorado Custom Bullets). The company expanded to more than 100 employees by the 1940s, but lost its momentum through the 60s, and shrank to only two employees.
This led the company to be purchased in 1974 by Randy and Coni Brooks (a couple of newlyweds who had previously been in the jewelry business), who then moved it to American Fork, Utah. Unhappy with the quality of ammunition being produced by the company and wanting to see it revitalized, it was Fred Barnes himself who urged the Brooks couple to purchase the company that once bore his name. Barnes saw in the Brooks an attention to quality and detail, so they bought the company on his urging and went back to its roots – making rounds in their basement, with two young daughters drafted to stuff bullet cores into jackets.
Fred Barnes was eventually hired by the couple as a consultant and the manufacturing facilities were moved to a 40,000-square-foot area in Lindon, Utah. They reverted to the Barnes Bullets name and – with the help of Fred Barnes – began rebuilding the brand.
NBC news intern with quite a sense of snark
Climate protesters hit a $110M Monet with mashed potatoes
— but a glass barrier prevented them making an impression on the artwork.
German protesters arrested after throwing mashed potatoes at Monet painting that sold for $110 million
“This painting is not going to be worth anything if we have to fight over food,” said one of the two activists protesting climate change. The painting was unharmed, the museum said
Police arrested a pair of German protesters who, in a bid to bring attention to the perils of climate change, threw mashed potatoes Sunday at a Claude Monet painting that once sold for more than $110 million.
Authorities said they are investigating the protesters, whom police did not name, for property damage and trespassing after the incident at the Barberini Museum in Potsdam, the capital of the state of Brandenburg, about 20 miles southwest of Berlin.
An “immediate conservation investigation” found that “Grainstacks,” which Monet painted in 1890 and which sold for $110.7 million at a 2019 auction, sustained no damage from the stunt, as it lies behind a layer of protective glass, the museum said in a statement on Twitter. The painting will be back on display by Wednesday, the museum added.
A Brandenburg police spokesperson did not immediately respond to a question about why the protesters were being investigated for property damage given that the painting was unharmed.
Video posted to the Twitter account of the Last Generation, the German climate group that claimed responsibility, shows two protesters hurling mashed potatoes at the painting and then kneeling in front of it and seeming to glue their hands to the wall.
The stunt was similar to one this month at London’s National Gallery, where two protesters from the U.K. group Just Stop Oil threw what appeared to be tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh’s painting “Sunflowers,” which sold for nearly $40 million in 1987, to protest the country’s cost-of-living crisis. That painting was also behind protective glass and unharmed, according to the museum.
On Sunday, the German activists referred to the U.K. protest as they carried out their own.
The Bump Stock Court Case Coming Up: Cargill v Garland.
U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)-– On October 3, 2022, the Supreme Court denied a writ of certiorari to two promising bump stock cases, one in the Tenth Circuit, another in the Sixth Circuit. The appeals process for those two cases is finished.
Another bump stock case Cargill v. Garland, is in the Fifth Circuit and may tip the balance. It’s being considered en banc and is a well-argued and supported case.
The case was filed on March 25, 2019, originally titled Cargill v. Barr.
In all three cases, the arguments are not about the Second Amendment. They are about the ability of bureaucrats to make law and the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches of government.
In Cargill v. Garland, supported by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, the district court decided in favor of the government on November 23, 2020. The case was appealed to the Fifth Circuit, and a three-judge panel upheld the district court.
A three-judge panel issued an opinion on the case in the Fifth Circuit on December 14, 2022.
The three judge panel refused to consider either the separation of powers issues, or the Chevron doctrine, claiming they were irrelevant because the panel ruled bump stocks were machine guns.
The Fifth Circuit was asked to consider the case en banc, which is to say, before the entire court, by a member of the Court. A majority of the members of the Fifth Circuit agreed to hear the case, en banc.
The trend of the case follows the GOA case in the Sixth Circuit. The Sixth Circuit agreed to hear the bump stock case en banc. The Sixth Circuit split evenly, with eight members voting to rule the bump stock regulation invalid and eight-member voting to rule for the government. In the case of a tie vote, the district court ruling was upheld. The GOA case was denied a writ of certiorari on October 3 of, 2022.
The Cargill v. Garland oral arguments were heard by the Fifth Circuit, en banc, on September 13, 2022.
There is a good chance the Fifth Circuit will reverse the opinion of the district court. A majority of the Court agreed to hear the case, starting fresh, en banc. If the Fifth Circuit reverses the opinion and finds for Cargill, the case will create a split in the Circuits between the Tenth, the Sixth, and the Fifth circuits.
This gives the Supreme Court a strong incentive to hear the case.
There is an Owellian quality to the circumstances. For over a decade, the ATF assured Americans that “bump stocks” were *not* machineguns.
About half a million Americans purchased the devices on the assurance they were legal.
As I figured we would eventually see, and be interested in how it was finagled, this judge is using whatever pretzel logic he can think of to read the Supreme Court’s intent of Bruen’s Text-History-Tradition standard completely opposite to what it actually means.
Your crap-for-brains for the day.
NEW: Defense Distributed v. Bonta (C.D. CA): In a tentative ruling, judge says he plans to deny motion for a preliminary injunction against AB 1621, saying that the Second Amendment’s plain text “plainly does not” cover the “self-manufacture of firearms”. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
“Such approach would contrary to the actual language of the Second Amendment which provides that ‘A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…'”
“That is, unless Bruen means something other than what it quite-plainly says (although, considering that what we deal with here is the Second Amendment, perhaps this is no longer accepted as a persuasive criticism).”
“…the plain text of the Second Amendment, which says nothing about ‘self-manufacture or assembly’ of one’s own firearms.'”
The Progressive Socialist War on American Children
The time has come that we — as constitutional conservatives and Republicans — stop playing this absurd adherence to the Marquis of Queensberry’s rules. It is imperative to understand the strategy, goals, plans, and objectives of the radical leftists and Marxists; that is why I have a copy of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” in my home. The leftists in America have no issue with wrongly castigating and demonizing their political opposition in the most despicable and heinous terms. We need not lower ourselves to such a level of depravity, but we must simply tell the truth. As we head into the final stretch of this midterm election cycle it is no longer debatable: the progressive socialists have declared war against American children. After this past week, what else should we deduce?
I am committed to ensuring that the unalienable rights of our children, born and unborn, are not violated. America is looking for courageous adults who will stand upon the ramparts for our children.
This past week we witnessed 15 unelected bureaucrats of the Centers for Disease Control advisory board unanimously voted that the COVID shot be included in child immunization requirements. So, 15 individuals – who, behind the anonymity of their vote — decided that our children, as young as 6 months, must be given a shot to get an education in a public school. You can bet that most Democrat-controlled states will then mandate all children must adhere to the CDC guidance (Never forget that it was Karl Marx who listed state control of education as one of the Marxist planks). This decision was met with unrestricted angst and anger from our youngest daughter who blatantly refuses to have such an injection go into little Jaxton Bernard’s body.
COVID is not a disease–it is a virus; therefore, the so-called mandated “vaccine” is not such. A vaccine eradicates a disease. It has been proven that this COVID shot does not prevent this viral infection. As a matter of fact, in young people, the COVID shot has proven to have adverse effects. Furthermore, COVID was most dangerous for those with specified comorbidities — heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and obesity. The demographic that was the least impacted by COVID was the 0-17-year-old group. So, why mandate this ineffective shot, and leverage education, rather indoctrination, on its inoculation?
It kind of reminds me of Joe Biden threatening to cut off school lunch programs for school districts that refused to adopt the LBGTQ+ and gender dysphoria agenda.
As well, we have a new abhorrent assertion emanating from the progressive socialists. Murdering unborn babies in the womb is now an economic issue. Yes, so says Stacey Abrams, and even Joy Reid of MSNBC. It appears, according to Abrams, that if women dismember their babies in the womb, they lessen their economic concerns. Talk about a creepy take on budget cuts. Now leftists, in the need to make abortion relevant, have reduced unborn babies to a budget line item . . . and they want veto power. Our children are a gift from God, and they are endowed with the very first unalienable right: life.
The leftist position goes beyond anything reasonable or moral and, instead, promotes infanticide. Ralph Northam referred to a born child as “it.” Maryland and California have legislation advancing the idea that a born child can still be left to die. This is a demonic evil.
As well, there is an abominable drive towards child gender modification, mutilation, and surgeries along with life-altering hormonal therapies and puberty blockers. Parental rights, in this instance, are not part of the leftist ideological agenda. After all, leftists believe that our kids are not ours, but the property of the State. A leftist judge here in Dallas County, Texas, has ruled that a mother can, against the dad’s wishes, take her 10-year-old son to California so he can undergo gender modification surgery because she wants him to be a girl.
We have the American Medical Association asking the DOJ to investigate anyone speaking out against child gender modification surgery. Planned Parenthood has now added child gender modification surgery to its business plan. There are medical centers now seeing this as a lucrative, profitable endeavor and are pushing for these procedures, which the American Psychiatric Association designated as child abuse. Yes, we are chemically and physically castrating our kids. In Virginia, a progressive socialist elected official wanted to introduce legislation that parents who did not “affirm” their child’s chosen gender should lose custody. She has since back-peddled, no doubt due to the outcry when the story broke, including members of her political party who shunned her . . . and rightfully so.
Perhaps collusion exists between the medical-industrial complex and the educational-indoctrination complex. The CDC is mandating the COVID shot to attend public school. Some cannot afford private schooling. Children are then forced into public, government indoctrination centers, especially since Randi Weingarten and the leftists despise educational freedom and parental choice in education. The children are therefore indoctrinated, having drag queens paraded before them, while they are told, against parental knowledge, that they can choose their gender . . . and the teachers will enable them to do so.
Never forget, the medical-industrial complex makes the money from this purposeful and intentional grooming.
The progressive socialists do not talk about child sex trafficking. They are redefining pedophilia to be “minor-attracted persons.” They are sexualizing our children. Remember the Netflix series “Cuties?”
There is a progressive socialist war on our children. I am reminded of Jesus, who said:
“It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.” (Luke 17:2)
Metaphorically speaking, there are a lot of progressive socialists who do not realize that they have a millstone tied around their necks.
Steadfast and Loyal.