Lancet Study on Covid Vaccine Autopsies Finds 74% Were Caused by Vaccine – Study is Removed Within 24 Hours. 

A Lancet review of 325 autopsies after Covid vaccination found that 74% of the deaths were caused by the vaccine – but the study was removed within 24 hours.

The paper, a pre-print that was awaiting peer-review, is written by leading cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough, Yale epidemiologist Dr. Harvey Risch and their colleagues at the Wellness Company and was published online on Wednesday on the pre-print site of the prestigious medical journal.

However, less than 24 hours later, the study was removed and a note appeared stating: “This preprint has been removed by Preprints with the Lancet because the study’s conclusions are not supported by the study methodology.” While the study had not undergone any part of the peer-review process, the note implies it fell foul of “screening criteria”.

The original study abstract can be found in the Internet Archive. It reads (with my emphasis added):

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Two would-be robbers were killed in an attempted jugging Friday

Two men are dead after police say an attempted jugging went wrong Friday near South Park Mall. [in San Antonio]

Police Chief William McManus said the target, a man in his 20s, was withdrawing money at a drive-through Chase ATM at about noon at 2310 Southwest Military Drive.

The man saw the two suspects approaching him, one on foot and the other in a sedan.

He pulled out a handgun and shot both of them, killing them.

The chief declined to say what the suspects told the man in the moments leading up to the robbery. Asked whether weapons were found on the suspected robbers, McManus said, “We’re still looking at that.”

The chief said it appeared to be a “jugging” case, in which thieves target someone known to be withdrawing a large sum of money.

“It’s been a trend throughout the country right now,” the chief said. “We believe at this point — and this could change — that this is a jugging incident.”

McManus said detectives are interviewing the man involved Friday afternoon.

As for criminal charges, the chief said that’s “not what I’m looking at right now.”

“There’s no continuing danger to anyone in the area,” he said. “It was a robbery that didn’t go well for the robbers.”

Grandstanding for the morons who were stupid enough to elect him.

Chuck Schumer to Undertake Gun Control Push After Shootings Rock Democrat-Run Cities

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is pursuing more gun control after shootings rocked Democrat-run cities over the Fourth of July weekend.

The Hill reported weekend shootings in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Baltimore, Maryland; Lansing, Michigan; and Wichita, Kansas. All four cities are Democrat-run.

Breitbart News also noted at least 32 people were shot Friday into Monday morning in Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Chicago. Three of the shooting victims succumbed to their wounds.

President Joe Biden responded to the gun control by calling for his normal litany of gun control laws: an “assault weapons” ban, a “high capacity” magazine ban, universal background checks, the ability to sue gun makers over gun crime, and more.

The Hill pointed out that Schumer wants more gun control as well.

Schumer’s spokesperson, Allison Biasotti, spoke on Schumer’s gun control push, saying:

Leader Schumer was proud to have passed a significant bipartisan gun safety bill through the Senate last summer but more must be done. Schumer continues to work with his caucus to find a path forward that can garner enough Republican support and combat the scourge of gun violence, save lives and bring meaningful change.

Schumer will have to get 60 votes to pass gun control, and the prospects are not high.

Moreover, any gun control that may pass the Senate is likely defeated once it reaches the Republican-controlled House.

One Republican-led city, Fort Worth, also witnessed a shooting over the holiday weekend. Multiple gunmen opened fire in a crowd on Fourth of July eve, killing three people.

Colorado offers a stark Second Amendment warning to the six fast-growing states in the South

It’s no secret that pro-freedom policies unleash human potential and lead to the creation of wealth and prosperity. The migration of people inevitably follows freedom. The world saw that last century: East Germans risked getting machine-gunned to escape communism to the West. Cubans built make-shift rafts to sail through shark-infested waters to freedom. Even in a generally free country like the United States, the same pattern holds true with domestic migration to freer states.

Bloomberg recently reported on the sheer magnitude of domestic migration of people and capital:

A $100 Billion Wealth Migration Tilts US Economy’s Center of Gravity South

Some 2.2 million people moved to the Southeast in just over two years. That’s roughly the population of Houston.

Drive along the 240-mile stretch of the Atlantic coast from Charleston, South Carolina, through the grassy marsh land of southern Georgia and down into northern Florida, and you’ll see one of the most profound economic shifts in the US today.[…]

More broadly, the entire South from here, north to Kentucky and west to Texas is where businesses are moving to, jobs are being created and homes are being bought. […]

The numbers tell the story. For the first time, six fast-growing states in the South — Florida, Texas, Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee — are contributing more to the national GDP than the Northeast, with its Washington-New York-Boston corridor, in government figures going back to the 1990s. […]

A flood of transplants helped steer about $100 billion in new income to the Southeast in 2020 and 2021 alone, while the Northeast bled out about $60 billion, based on an analysis of recently published Internal Revenue Service data.

The Southeast accounted for more than two-thirds of all job growth across the US since early 2020, almost doubling its pre-pandemic share. And it was home to 10 of the 15 fastest-growing American large cities.[…]

“You could throw a dart anywhere at a map of the South and hit somewhere booming,” said Mark Vitner, a retired longtime economist for Wells Fargo who now heads his own economic consultancy, Piedmont Crescent Capital, in Charlotte, North Carolina.[…]

“We now have more employees in Texas than New York state. It shouldn’t have been that way,” JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon said to Bloomberg TV on a swing through the South earlier this year.

As Walter Wriston, former CEO of Citicorp said, “Capital goes where it is welcome and stays where it is well treated.” A combination of good economic policies and the lack of reflexive hatred of businesses and their owners brought them to the South, and the results are there for everyone to see. Setting aside Bloomberg’s concern trolling about “inequality,” which is just as prevalent in the Northeast, the takeaway is that the people like living in the South. As Charleston County Republican Maurice Washington said:

“They don’t want to raise their kids in places like New York and California. You get a lot of that,” Washington said.

This growth pattern is great, but migration comes with its own risk.

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Home intruder shot, killed in North Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A home intruder was shot and killed in North Las Vegas Tuesday afternoon, according to police.

On July 4 around 1 p.m., officers received a call saying a home intruder was shot in the 600 block of Sand Sage Avenue near Carey Avenue and Revere Street. When officers arrived they found the intruder dead, police said.

After the preliminary investigation, police determined that the man, who the residents did not know, entered the house through the front door.

This is an ongoing investigation, no further details are available at this time.

This special session is truly nefarious. A special session in Tennessee is a separate single-topic debate. It’s a sneaky way to bring Red Flag law legislation to the floor of the full body of representatives, wherein a regular session, it would die in committee as has happened in the past. If this were the regular Tennessee session, a Red Flag law would be a non-starter.

There will be intense pressure and truckloads of outside money from national-level organizations and governments. This is a terrible and underhanded sneak attack by a governor to undermine the rights of the people of Tennessee. He’s always been a squish on gun rights and can never be trusted. Expect to see wailing mothers and crying children saying everybody must compromise and shred the Constitution because of one deranged sodomite pervert who should have been locked away in a mental facility.
– Herschel Smith

Local GOP pushes legislators to support 2nd Amendment during upcoming special session

Gov. Bill Lee has called for a special legislative session this August “to pursue thoughtful, practical measures that strengthen the safety of Tennesseans, preserve Second Amendment rights, prioritize due process protections, support law enforcement, and address mental health.”

The Montgomery County Tennessee Republican Party (MCTNGOP) stands with our Republican elected officials in maintaining their duty to uphold, preserve and protect the Tennessee State Constitution and the US Constitution with all the rights contained therein, and uphold the Republican Party values contained within the Republican Party platform.

With a primary focus of this session on possible gun control measures, and even discussions entertaining versions of a red flag law, the MCTNGOP unequivocally opposes any legislation
or Republican member of the state Legislature who would seek to defy the duties and responsibilities to their constituents and constitutions, especially regarding our inalienable Second Amendment right.

The MCTNGOP continues its recruitment and elections of candidates that support the US and Tennessee State constitutions, and the citizen’s right to keep and bear arms that expressly “shall not be infringed” that truly is a foundational pillar of American liberty. Those officials or candidates not in alignment with our shared Republican values will not obtain the support of the MCTNGOP. We look forward to watching our committed civil servants in the Legislature stand on their conservative values to support, protect and safeguard the liberty and freedoms we enjoy as Tennesseans.

We would also like to remind our community that the GOP wholeheartedly supports and endorses the constitutional right of peaceful protest but in no way endorses violence. We look forward to watching our community express their thoughts and feelings on the matters to be considered during this upcoming special session, and encourage all to contact our office, their elected representatives, and have conversations with other community members throughout this process.

July 7

1124 – The city of Tyre falls to the Venetian Crusade after a long siege.

1456 – A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death.

1534 – Jacques Cartier makes his first contact with native peoples in what is now Canada.

1777 – American forces retreating from Fort Ticonderoga are defeated in the Battle of Hubbardton.

1846 – During the Mexican-American War, US troops of the Pacific Naval Squadron occupy the port towns of Monterey and Yerba Buena (modern day San Francisco) , in the Mexican province of California.

1863 – The United States begins its first military draft; exemptions cost $300.

1865 – 4 conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln are hanged in the yard of Fort McNair in Washington D.C.

1898 – President McKinley signs the Newlands Resolution annexing Hawaii as a territory of the United States.

1907 – Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. stages his first Follies on the roof of the New York Theater in New York City.

1911 – The U.S., UK, Japan, and Russia sign the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention of 1911, banning open water seal hunting, the first international treaty to address wildlife preservation issues.

1928 – Sliced bread is sold for the first time by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri.

1930 – Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser begins construction of Boulder Dam (now known as Hoover Dam).

1944 – During the World War II U.S. invasion of Saipan, General Yoshitsugu Saitō orders the largest banzai charge of the war, gathering close to 4,300 Japanese soldiers and charging directly into the U.S. Army’s 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 105th Infantry Regiment, killing or wounding over 2,000 men in a 15 hour battle until almost all the Japanese soldiers taking part in the charge are killed.

1946 – While piloting the plane on its maiden flight, Howard Hughes nearly dies when his XF-11 reconnaissance aircraft prototype crashes in a Beverly Hills neighborhood.

1952 – The ocean liner SS United States passes Bishop Rock on her maiden voyage, breaking the transatlantic speed record to become the fastest passenger ship in the world.

1958 – President Eisenhower signs the Alaska Statehood Act into law.

1981 –President Reagan appoints Sandra Day O’Connor to become the first female member of the Supreme Court.

1983 – Samantha Smith, a US schoolgirl, flies to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Secretary General Yuri Andropov in response to a letter she wrote to him.

1992 – The New York State Court of Appeals rules that women have the same right as men to go topless in public.

2003 – NASA Opportunity rover, MER-B or Mars Exploration Rover–B, is launched aboard a Delta II rocket at Cape Canaveral Launch Site 17B

2013 – A Rediske Air, De Havilland Otter air taxi, crashes in Soldotna, Alaska, killing all 10 passengers and crew aboard.

2016 – A disgruntled black man shoots 14 policemen during an anti police protest in downtown Dallas, Texas, killing 5 of them. He is subsequently killed by a robot delivered bomb while holed up in a college library building.

BLUF
One final point: imagine how much further along the world would be today if the $4.1 trillion spent on wind and solar over the past 18 years had, instead, been spent on developing and deploying the next generation of nuclear power plants. That would be an energy transition worth writing about.

The Energy Transition Isn’t.

We are inundated with claims about the “energy transition.”

In February, E&E News, reporting on the State of the Union speech said,  “President Joe Biden laid out his vision for the energy transition Tuesday night.” In March, a reporter for Politico declared “The U.S. energy transition is well underway.”

Also in March, during a speech at the CERAWeek conference in Houston, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said that “As this transition progresses, our energy mix will change.” Or consider the March 9 press release from the White House, which said “The Administration is continuing to implement the Inflation Reduction Act, which is already galvanizing our clean energy transition and making clean and energy efficient technologies more affordable for American families.”

I could list many more examples like the ones above. But the hard truth is this: the energy transition isn’t. The numbers from the just-released Statistical Review of World Energy show, once again, that despite rapid growth in wind and solar, those two forms of energy are not even keeping pace with the growth in hydrocarbons. That’s true both globally and in the U.S.

And here’s the key point: hydrocarbons are prevailing despite staggering amounts of spending on wind and solar. According to a January report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, some $6.7 trillion was spent on alt-energy globally between 2004 and 2022, with the vast majority of that, some $4.8 trillion spent on renewables. And the vast majority of that $4.8 trillion — about $4.1 trillion — was spent on wind and solar.

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Philadelphia Shooting Perp Says He Opened Fire to Help the City Do Something About ‘Gun Violence’.

On Monday, Kimbrady Carriker, a self-described computer engineer, opened fire across several Philadelphia residential blocks, killing five people and wounding four more. Carriker apparently prepared for a hell of a shootout with police before going on his murder spree. . .

Police said the 40-year-old male suspect was armed with a rifle, pistol, extra magazines, a police scanner and bulletproof vest when he fatally shot four men on the street and then chased and killed a fifth man inside a home.

A 2-year-old boy was shot four times in the legs, while a 13-year-old boy also suffered gunshot wounds to his legs, according to cops.

The gunman had fired at police as they chased him for several blocks before he eventually surrendered in an alley, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said.

When police took the reported BLM supporter alive, he was complimentary of their work. From the Philadelphia Inquirer . . .

The shooter accused of killing five people during a harrowing rampage in Southwest Philadelphia Monday night told police the shooting spree was an attempt to help authorities address the city’s gun violence crisis, and that a deity would be sending more people to help, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

The assertions by Kimbrady Carriker were made to police in the hours after Carriker was arrested on the 1600 block of South Frazier Street, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.

Carriker first told responding officers who made the arrest that they had done a good job, the sources said. Carriker also told them the gunfire — which spanned several blocks and struck people, including two children, who had no apparent connection to one another — was an attempt to help police because “all these guys are out there killing people,” the sources said.

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Pritzker compares AR-15s to “missile launchers” while calling for a federal ban

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker seems to be channeling his inner Joe Biden in his defense of the state’s ban on so-called assault weapons and “large capacity” magazines. Biden has famously (and erroneously) proclaimed that while the Second Amendment may protect muskets, it never allowed citizens to own cannons; a statement that’s been thoroughly debunked on multiple occasions yet still emerges from Biden’s mouth on a regular basis.

The thrust of Biden’s argument, factually deficient though it may be, is that the Second Amendment doesn’t protect the right to keep and bear any and all arms, and Pritzker is now piggybacking on the president’s pontifications with a ludicrous comparison of his own.

 “We’ve banned assault weapons. We’ve banned high capacity magazines. We’ve banned switches that turn regular guns into automatic weapons and here in Illinois those are things that will keep people safe and alive, but we need a national ban,” Pritzker said.

The White House Wednesday highlighted Illinois’ law as what the Biden administration would like to see nationwide.…

To the consolidated lawsuit challenging the state’s gun and magazine ban, Pritzker said he’s “heartened” after last week’s hearing in the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. The governor cited some of the judges’ questions focused on whether the issue is a “popularity contest which guns we’re going to allow.”

“Because the people who were advocating for semi-automatic weapons were saying ‘well gee, everybodies got one now, so you can’t ban them.’ Well that’s ridiculous,” Pritzker said. “If everyone had a missile launcher, we shouldn’t ban missile launchers?”

I confess that I’m not up to speed on the legality of owning missile launchers, but it’s perfectly legal to own a grenade launcher… as long as you’re willing to register it under the NFA and pay a $200 tax stamp. But as long as missile launchers cost millions of dollars, I don’t think Pritzker has to worry about a Patriot missile system being erected by a private citizen in Chicago or Joliet. We’re not talking about exotic weapon systems that will never be in common use for self-defense, we’re talking about commonly-owned rifles lawfully possessed by tens of millions of Americans for hunting, recreation, self-defense, and other lawful activities.

Todd Vandermyde, who’s consulting plaintiffs in the challenge to Illinois’ ban, said more gun control won’t make the streets safer. He said the governor’s other policies are “an abject failure.”

“They don’t go after the criminals. ‘Oh no, we’re going to give them electric home monitoring. Oh no, we’re going to let them go out for 48 hours. Oh no, we’re not going to require cash bail,’” Vandermyde told The Center Square, referring to the state’s latest changes to the criminal justice system.…

Vandermyde said the case isn’t about missile launchers.

“They just keep jumping to the absurd that if you allow rifles, shotguns and pistols then you have to allow all this other stuff. And nobody is arguing [that], that’s not even before the court in any way,” Vandermyde said.

Vandermyde’s correct in noting that this argument is more useful to politicians than to the attorneys defending the state’s ban, but Attorney General Kwame Raoul is deploying a similar argument that’s equally absurd. As the Chicago Sun-Times reported back in March:

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul on Thursday filed a brief defending Illinois’ assault weapon ban, arguing the weapons restricted by the newly enacted law aren’t commonly used for self-defense and that large capacity magazines are accessories — not “arms.”

It also argues the country’s founding fathers owned guns that could only fire a single shot before reloading — proving assault weapons and large capacity magazines weren’t in “common use” when the Constitution was ratified.

“The assault weapons restricted by the Act are not commonly used for self-defense; by design and in practice, they exist for offensive infliction of mass casualties,” the brief states.

It also argues the term “arms” refers to weapons and not “accessories,” and that large capacity magazines are therefore not protected under the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.

The Supreme Court has already stated that arms that are in common use today are protected by the Second Amendment, not just those arms that were around at the time the Bill of Rights was ratified. In Caetano v. Massachusetts , a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that stun guns and other electronic weapons fall under the scope of the Second Amendment, pointing out that in Heller the justices determined that “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.”

Note that the Supreme Court specifically referred to “bearable arms”, which negates Pritzker’s hamhanded comparison of missile launchers to AR-15s. But if the courts were to accept Raoul’s argument, then what’s stopping them from concluding that all semi-automatic firearms, including handguns, fall outside the Second Amendment’s protections? We may soon find out, because based on the makeup of the Seventh Circuit panel that recently heard oral arguments in the Illinois gun ban cases I’m not all that optimistic that the appeals court will follow Supreme Court precedent and the Bruen test to their logical conclusions; modern sporting rifles are indeed in common use for a variety of lawful purposes, and are therefore covered by the Second Amendment’s guarantee of our right to keep and bear arms.

Circle The Wagons: The Government Is On The Warpath – OpEd

How many Americans have actually bothered to read the Constitution, let alone the first ten amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights (a quick read at 462 words)?

Take a few minutes and read those words for yourself—rather than having some court or politician translate them for you—and you will be under no illusion about where to draw the line when it comes to speaking your mind, criticizing your government, defending what is yours, doing whatever you want on your own property, and keeping the government’s nose out of your private affairs.

In an age of overcriminalization, where the average citizen unknowingly commits three crimes a day, and even the most mundane activities such as fishing and gardening are regulated, government officials are constantly telling Americans what not to do.

Yet it was not always this way.

It used to be “we the people” giving the orders, telling the government what it could and could not do. Indeed, the three words used most frequently throughout the Bill of Rights in regards to the government are “no,” “not” and “nor.”

Compare the following list of “don’ts” the government is prohibited from doing with the growing list of abuses to which “we the people” are subjected on a daily basis, and you will find that we have reached a state of crisis wherein the government is routinely breaking the law and violating its contractual obligations.

For instance, the government is NOT allowed to restrict free speech, press, assembly or the citizenry’s ability to protest and correct government wrongdoing. Nevertheless, the government continues to prosecute whistleblowers, persecute journalists, criminalize expressive activities, crack down on large gatherings of citizens mobilizing to voice their discontent with government policies, and insulate itself and its agents from any charges of wrongdoing (or what the courts refer to as “qualified immunity”).

The government may NOT infringe on a citizen’s right to defend himself. Nevertheless, in many states, it’s against the law to carry a concealed weapon (gun, knife or even pepper spray), and the average citizen is permitted little self-defense against militarized police officers who shoot first and ask questions later.

The government may NOT enter or occupy a citizen’s house without his consent (the quartering of soldiers). Nevertheless, government soldiers (i.e., militarized police) carry out more than 80,000 no-knock raids on private homes every year, while maiming children, killing dogs and shooting citizens.

The government may NOT carry out unreasonable searches and seizures on the citizenry or their possessions, NOR can government officials issue warrants without some evidence of wrongdoing (probable cause). Unfortunately, what is unreasonable to the average American is completely reasonable to a government agent, for whom the ends justify the means. In such a climate, we have no protection against roadside strip searches, blood draws, DNA collection, SWAT team raids, surveillance or any other privacy-stripping indignity to which the government chooses to subject us.

The government is NOT to deprive anyone of life, liberty or property without due process. Nevertheless, the government continues to incarcerate tens of thousands of Americans whose greatest crime is being poor and not white. The same goes for those who are put to death, some erroneously, by a system weighted in favor of class and wealth.

The government may NOT take private property for public use without just compensation. Nevertheless, under the guise of the “greater public interest,” the government often hides behind eminent domain laws in order to allow megacorporations to tear down homes occupied by less prosperous citizens in order to build high-priced resorts and shopping malls.

Government agents may NOT force a citizen to testify against himself. Yet what is the government’s extensive surveillance network that spies on all of our communications but a thinly veiled attempt at using our own words against us?

The government is NOT permitted to claim any powers that are not expressly granted to them by the Constitution. This prohibition has become downright laughable as the government continues to claim for itself every authority that serves to swell its coffers, cement its dominion, and expand its reach.

Despite what some special interest groups have suggested to the contrary, the problems we’re experiencing today did not arise because the Constitution has outlived its usefulness or become irrelevant, nor will they be solved by a convention of states or a ratification of the Constitution.

No, the problem goes far deeper.

It can be traced back to the point at which “we the people” were overthrown as the center of the government. As a result, our supremacy has been undone, our authority undermined, and our experiment in democratic self-governance left in ruins.

No longer are we the rulers of this land. We have long since been deposed and dethroned, replaced by corporate figureheads with no regard for our sovereignty, no thought for our happiness, and no respect for our rights.

In other words, without our say-so and lacking any mandate, the point of view of the Constitution has been shifted from “we the people” to “we the government.” Our taxpayer-funded employees—our appointed servants—have stopped looking upon us as their superiors and started viewing as their inferiors.

Unfortunately, we’ve gotten so used to being dictated to by government agents, bureaucrats and militarized police alike that we’ve forgotten that WE are supposed to be the ones calling the shots and determining what is just, reasonable and necessary.

Then again, we’re not the only ones guilty of forgetting that the government was established to serve us as well as obey us. Every branch of government, from the Executive to the Judicial and Legislative, seems to be suffering this same form of amnesia. Certainly, when government programs are interpreted from the government’s point of view (i.e., the courts and legislatures), there is little the government CANNOT do in its quest for power and control.

We’ve been so brainwashed and indoctrinated into believing that the government is actually looking out for our best interests, when in fact the only compelling interesting driving government programs is maintain power and control by taking away our money and control. This vital truth, that the government exists for our benefit and operates at our behest, seems to have been lost in translation over two centuries dominated by government expansion, endless wars and centralized federal power.

Have you ever wondered why the Constitution begins with those three words “we the people”? It was intended to be a powerful reminder that everything flows from the citizenry. We the people are the center of the government and the source of its power. That “we” is crucial because it reminds us that there is power and safety in numbers, provided we stand united. We can accomplish nothing alone.

This is the underlying lesson of the Constitution, which outlines the duties and responsibilities of government. It was a mutual agreement formed by early Americans in order to ensure that when problems arose, they could address them together.

It’s like the wagon trains of the Old West, comprised of individual groups of pioneers. They rarely ventured out alone but instead traveled as convoys. And when faced with a threat, these early Americans formed their wagons into a tight circle in order to defend against invaders. In doing so, they presented a unified front and provided protection against an outside attack.

In much the same way, the Constitution was intended to work as an institutionalized version of the wagon circle, serving as a communal shield against those who would harm us.

Unfortunately, we have been ousted from that protected circle, left to fend for ourselves in the wilderness that is the American frontier today. Those who did the ousting—the courts, the politicians, and the corporations—have since replaced us with yes-men, shills who dance to the tune of an elite ruling class. In doing so, they have set themselves as the central source of power and the arbiters of what is just and reasonable.

Once again, we’re forced to navigate hostile terrain, unsure of how to protect ourselves and our loved ones from militarized police, weaponized drones, fusion centers, Stingray devices, SWAT team raids, the ongoing military drills on American soil, the government stockpiling of ammunition, the erection of mass detention centers across the country, and all other manner of abuses.

Read the smoke signals, and the warning is clear: the government is on the warpath.

Right to bear arms

Here we are in the middle of the Fourth of July week. This is sort of the unofficial start of summer in the Flathead. If you were like most of us, this past weekend and coming week will be spent outdoors, camping, hiking, fishing, mountain bike riding, boating, swimming and kayaking.

I spent yesterday, the Fourth, at our lake cabin with family and friends. This included some fishing, eating hamburgers and potato salad, target shooting and just plain relaxing on the shore of “my” lake. Last week I was in Canada fishing. As usual, Canadian fishing was fantastic. But that is another story for another week.

We shot lots of fireworks from our dock. Seems like every lakeshore lot and cabin owner likes to help with the evening entertainment, so we all shoot a lot of fireworks. We don’t want to be outdone by our neighbors. I am always amazed at how the fireworks manufacturers can take common white explosive powder and make such a wide array of beautiful multi-colored aerial displays. Wow!

A very important part of every Fourth of July celebration is the need to remember what this day represents in the birth and history of our nation. We all need to appreciate the tremendous vision the gentlemen had who drafted the Constitution and its amendments. As a hunter and owner of several firearms, I really appreciate the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. Of all the amendments to the Constitution, the right to bear arms seems to have generated more continuous controversy and media attention than most of the other amendments.

Many folks believe the Second Amendment was designed to protect the interest of hunters or for citizen self-protection from bad guys. Those are certainly worthy reasons for having firearms. But the primary drafter of our Constitution and its amendments was Thomas Jefferson. He is quoted as saying, “the primary purpose of the Second Amendment is to protect citizens from the tyranny of their governments.” Protection from their governments. Wow, that is certainly a different slant as the reason for having the Second Amendment!

In the last 90 years, tens of millions of common unarmed citizens in Europe, Asia and Africa have been murdered by their governments. These unarmed citizens had no way to protect themselves from their evil governments and their armed soldiers. That can’t happen in America with over 100 million armed civilians!

The current liberal mainstream news media has certainly sided with the anti-gun groups that want to reduce citizen rights to own firearms. Every time there is a mass shooting, which is defined as involving four or more people killed or wounded, there is media scream for more gun control. For some reason the shooting of four or five people seems to attract more news coverage than the 100-200 Americans who die every day in America from illegal drug overdoses. The loss of any citizen is indeed a tragedy. Drug deaths are the real current preventable tragedies in America, not gun deaths. FBI statistics show that more homicides are committed with knives than guns. Should we ban knives?

Lucky for us, the vast majority of law-abiding American gun owners, have been blessed with a conservative Supreme Court that has made several recent rulings protecting our constitutional right to bear arms. Their decisions in the Heller case (2008), McDonald case (2010) and the New York State Rifle and Pistol case (2022) have been favorable to gun ownership and possession. Twenty years ago, most states required a state or local government issued permit to open carry or conceal carry a handgun. Now the majority of states, including Montana, allow handgun carry without any permit. It’s our constitutional right.

As mentioned in the opening part of this column, last week our family was fishing in Canada. Since we drove to Canada, I had to store my handgun, which I normally carry when traveling, with a friend. Canada’s constitution does not have a strong right to firearms that allows its citizens or visitors to carry handguns.

So, as we continue to celebrate the birth of our country this week, let’s remember all rights and privileges we Americans have which are not enjoyed by most other citizens of this world. Lucky us. God bless the USA!

Gavin Newsom Says Something So Mind-numbingly Stupid, Only a Leftist Could Believe It

With our country more divided than most everyone alive has ever seen it, we’re keenly aware that Leftists seem to live in an entirely separate reality from our own. In their world, it’s perpetually the hottest year evuh, Klansmen rove the streets in gas-guzzling trucks, murdering unarmed black youth, women are both superior and oppressed, and men have babies. So we shouldn’t be too surprised when one of them says something that manifestly isn’t so. Nonetheless, occasionally one of the luminaries of the Left will utter something so extraordinarily stupid that I am compelled to call it out. Today’s honoree is California Governor and 2024 Democrat presidential understudy Gavin Newsom.

Newsom recently posted a video on social media that was filmed while he was in Idaho over the weekend, allegedly stumping for Biden but coincidentally building up his own base. Anyway, the video shows Newsom browsing in a bookstore, while a white text overlay reads, “Visiting a bookstore with banned books in Boise.”

Let’s pause a minute and think this through.

When something is banned, it is removed — like a Republican president can be banned from social media platforms. It becomes illegal and cannot be found or obtained. Yet, here is Governor Nuisance, clowning around in a store full of so-called banned books, prominently displayed for sale. In a dark red state, no less. How is he able to do this?

Because, as with so many other words, “banned” does not mean what the Left says it means. To the Left, a book becomes “banned” if a responsible adult points out that it’s pornographic and not appropriate for minors.

“Book bans are at a record high — there have been over 1,200 challenges in the last year…” tweeted Gov. Tiresome, giving away the game by conflating “banned” with “challenged.”

The rest of the video is similarly idiotic. The text changes to “2022 set a new record…” while the image behind it shows the books The Color Purple by Alice Walker, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, and a book by Judy Blume. Of course, Toni Morrison has received more awards and honors than I have space to list in this article. Walker and Blume have sold millions of books, been widely read by multiple generations, and have even reached the writers’ pinnacle of having major motion pictures made from their books. But, you know — they’re “banned” or something.

Newsom’s video could not be any more nonsensical or patronizing, but progressives will eat it up and preen:

…and this is the guy they’re probably gonna slip into the race when Biden finally implodes like an experimental submersible that wasn’t designed by boring 50-year-old white guys.

Robbery suspect shot by concealed carry holder on North Side

CHICAGO — A robbery suspect was shot early Wednesday morning in West Ridge by a concealed carry holder.

Just after 3:30 a.m., police said three men, ages 26, 33 and 31 were standing near their vehicle when they were approached by a man displaying a gun.

The man demanded the men’s property. At some point, the 26-year-old man, who has a concealed carry licenses, shot the robbery suspect multiple times.

The man was transported to St. Francis in critical condition.

Woman critical after being shot while in passenger seat on North Side
No other injuries were reported.

The Ranks of Gun Owners Grow, and So Does Their Resistance to Scrutiny
Researchers report that many gun owners, especially newer ones, falsely deny owning guns.

Believe it or not, people are reluctant to tell total strangers about their potentially controversial activities. In particular, Rutgers University researchers say, gun ownership is something many Americans decline to reveal when questioned by people they don’t know. That’s especially true of women and minorities newly among the ranks of gun owners amidst the chaos of recent years. Academics are unhappy that privacy-minded respondents impair their understanding of the world we live in, but such evasion is an inevitable consequence of decades of fiery debate and punitive gun policies.

Fibbing to Nosy Strangers

“Some individuals are falsely denying firearm ownership, resulting in research not accurately capturing the experiences of all firearm owners in the U.S.,” says Allison Bond, a doctoral student with Rutgers University’s New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center and lead author of “Predicting Potential Underreporting of Firearm Ownership in a Nationally Representative Sample,” published last month in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology. “More concerningly, these individuals are not being reached with secure firearm storage messaging and firearm safety resources, which may result in them storing their firearms in an unsecure manner, which in turn increases the risk for firearm injury and death.”

Bond frames the problem of dishonesty among survey respondents as posing a danger to those surveyed since they don’t receive proper firearm safety information. But her deeper concern is with the validity of research into firearms culture and policy in a country where experts don’t have anywhere near as good a handle on the prevalence of gun ownership as they had believed.

“The implications of false denials of firearms ownership are substantial,” claim the authors. “First, such practices would result in an underestimation of firearms ownership rates and diminish our capacity to test the association between firearm access and various firearm violence-related outcomes. Furthermore, such practices would skew our understanding of the demographics of firearm ownership, such that we would overemphasize the characteristics of those more apt to disclose. Third, the mere existence of a large group of individuals who falsely deny firearm ownership highlights that intervention aimed at promoting firearm safety (e.g., secure firearm storage) may fail to reach communities in need.”

It should be emphasized that the report authors didn’t conclusively identify anybody who denied gun ownership as a gun owner. Instead, the report dealt in probabilities, with the researchers building profiles of confirmed gun owners. They then applied the profiles across their sample of 3,500 respondents to estimate who was likely fibbing about not owning guns. The results depend on the probability threshold applied, but they came up with 1,206 confirmed owners, between 1,243 and 2,059 non-owners, and between 220 and 1,036 potential but secretive owners lying about their status.

“It may be that a percentage of firearm owners are concerned that their information will be leaked and the government will take their firearms or that researchers who are from universities that are typically seen as liberal and anti-firearm access will paint firearm owners in a bad light,” the authors allowed. They also speculated that many respondents falsely denying owning guns may come from communities that are traditionally unfriendly to gun ownership. That’s an interesting possibility considering that nearly half of all those designated as potential gun owners are unmarried urban women of color. In fact, as the study points out, many new gun owners are women and minorities.

Gun Owners Look Like Everybody

“An estimated 2.9% of U.S. adults (7.5 million) became new gun owners from 1 January 2019 to 26 April 2021. Most (5.4 million) had lived in homes without guns,” according to a separate study published last year in the Annals of Internal Medicine. “Approximately half of all new gun owners were female (50% in 2019 and 47% in 2020 to 2021), 20% were Black (21% in 2019 and in 2020–2021), and 20% were Hispanic (20% in 2019 and 19% in 2020–2021).”

With gun ownership becoming increasingly common beyond the traditional ranks of white suburban-to-rural men, there are big implications for politics and policy. New gun owners will certainly resist proposals to strip them of self-defense tools they acquired out of necessity. They’re also likely to resent restrictive policies that urban, left-of-center politicians promote to torment gun owners once assumed to be safe targets, but which apply to anybody who owns firearms no matter where they live and vote. Basically, the gun-ownership landscape is growing and changing, but new owners are even more reticent than established ones about revealing their existence to researchers and government officials.

After decades of debate, arbitrary crackdowns, and draconian enforcement actions, who can blame them?

Until recently, many gun opponents tried to paint firearm ownership as a fading fetish among a disappearing class of Americans.

Old Firearm Assumptions Look Shaky

Firearms “are owned by roughly one in five U.S. adults and can be found in approximately one of three U.S. households,” wrote the authors of a 2015 analysis of results from the National Firearms Survey, published in 2015 in the Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences. “Between 2004 and today, we know that the proportion of adults who personally own firearms (and the proportion who live in households with guns) has continued to decline, modestly but steadily, largely because of a decline in personal gun ownership by men.” They estimated 265 million firearms in private American hands.

But in 2021, Pew Research reported: “Four-in-ten U.S. adults say they live in a household with a gun, including 30% who say they personally own one.” And Gallup reported in 2020 that “thirty-two percent of U.S. adults say they personally own a gun, while a larger percentage, 44%, report living in a gun household.” Switzerland’s well-respected Small Arms Survey put the number of guns in private American hands at over 393 million in 2018.

Recent years have seen a surge in gun sales, spurred by rioting, social disorder, and political turmoil. Given that many of these gun buyers are first-time owners, it’s apparent that firearm ownership is becoming more widespread and being enjoyed by Americans who might have resisted the idea in the past. These new owners are even more suspicious of scrutiny than their predecessors in the already privacy-minded gun-owning community.

“Our results highlight the potential that several groups, particularly women and individuals living in urban environments, may be prone to falsely denying firearm ownership,” adds the Rutgers report.

Academic researchers and policymakers who draw from their work clearly regret such opacity. But they should cast the blame not on gun owners, but on the activists and politicians who vilified the exercise of self-defense rights and who drove growing numbers of Americans to evade scrutiny.