What do we do? The solution is simple. And so self evident it needs no further explanation. Of course, I haven’t said it would be easy.

Hating Your Mama Over Politics.

****************

Smartphones were introduced in 2007; social media soon followed. Whenever I talk to middle school and high school teachers, I hear the same thing: there is nothing that competes with the power of social media to socialize young people (or rather, un-socialize them) — and it is tearing these kids up inside. 

That’s young people — but what about the elderly woman who leaves her husband because he voted for Trump? What’s her excuse? What about the man in his twenties to cuts his mother off because she voted for Trump? What about the middle-aged man who turns family members against each other by going to holiday gatherings and not shutting his big fat mouth about how the “Demonrats” are going to be the death of us all?

What do we do about a person like this?:

Bandy X. Lee isn’t some nobody. She is a Yale University psychiatrist and holder of a master’s of divinity degree from Yale. And she believes that Trump supporters can only be persuaded to abandon their support for the sitting President of the United States by having some immense trauma visited upon them, along the lines of the firebombing of Dresden.

How does someone come to believe that their countrymen need to be treated that way — need to see their cities leveled! — because of their politics? Again, I remind you: this isn’t some fringe nut, but a Yale-trained psychiatrist and religious thinker. This is the kind of elite figure who will usher in soft totalitarianism because she does not think her fellow Americans are simply wrong, but evil.

I’ll take riots in Philly for $500, Alex

Why people are buying guns at a record pace in Pennsylvania in the run-up to Election Day

Charlotte Heller, a 71-year-old grandmother from Lower Macungie Township, was never a fan of guns.

Then came 2020.

This September, Heller and her 73-year-old husband Ira joined scores of other Pennsylvanians in becoming first-time gun owners during a year expected to break gun purchase records across the country.

“Let me tell you, I’ve never liked guns. I was always kind of afraid of guns,” Charlotte Heller said. “I felt like we didn’t need them.”

But 2020, of course, is a year like no other ― fueling gun sales with a combination of factors, experts say. Start with the coronavirus pandemic and shortage of basic supplies, then add a wave of protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota and the resulting property damage and violence, and cap it with one of most divisive presidential elections in modern history, and you’ve got a perfect storm for one of the most basic human emotions. Continue reading “”

Sturm, Ruger sees 50% surge in third-quarter gun sales
Company reports strain on production even as it gets set to add newly acquired Remington Arms line

Sturm, Ruger & Co. is starting to run out of guns, thanks to an “incredible surge in demand” in the third quarter, coupled with a Covid-induced caution in hiring, CEO Christopher J. Killoy told analysts in an Oct. 29 earnings call.

That increased demand – which Killoy attributed to “civil unrest” and not the run-up to the election – is about to be augmented, as Ruger starts to produce Marlin firearms, which it acquired for $30 million at the end of September as part of Remington Arms’ bankruptcy . He said a good portion of the Marlins will probably be produced at Ruger’s Newport facility.

Ruger’s gun sales picked up by more than 50% in the third quarter, which is actually below the 68% increase for the industry as a whole, according to national background check data.

In terms of dollars, the company’s firearm sales increased to $145.7 million for the quarter, a 53% increase from the third quarter of 2019, and net earnings went up to $24.8 million ($1.42 a share), about five times what they were a year ago. That brings year-to-date revenue just short of $400 million and puts profits at 58.7 million.

For shareholders that’s good news, since dividends are directly tied to earnings per share. That means they’ll get a 56-cent per-share dividend this quarter, as compared to 14 cents a year ago.

Kilroy credited the surge in sales to “protest, demonstration and civil unrest in many cities” leading to “concerns about personal protection,” though some of that could be coming from the social and economic upheavals due to the pandemic. He did not mention the particularly volatile presidential election – which in recent history has sparked an increase in gun sales.

Kilroy also said the industry might be benefiting from people being stuck at home as “new buyers return to getting outside with your friends and family to shoot while you can still social distance.”

The company only started rehiring workers in June because of fear that the virus would jeopardize their health. The company increased its headcount by 140 employees over the third quarter, to roughly 1,750, though individual headcounts for the Newport plant and the facilities in North Carolina and Arizona were not provided. The company was able to increase production by 15%, the company said, nevertheless “as a result of this unprecedented demand, inventories remained significantly reduced at all levels in the channel during the third quarter,” he said.

Put in numbers, the company had a backlog of close to 1.27 million guns at the end of last quarter. A year ago, the backlog was at 161,500.

This isn’t just the situation at Ruger, said Killoy.

“Most firearms brands have been cleaned out at all levels of the channel,” he said, adding, “we’ve never quite seen the level of inventory depletion within the entire channel. Whether it’s Ruger warehouses or distributor warehouses or the shelves at your local retailer, there’s not a lot of inventory out there right now, especially in the key product families. So I think it’s fundamentally stronger and different than I’ve seen in my three decades in the business.”

There is going to be even more of a strain on demand when Ruger takes Marlin production. Kilroy said the company expects to close the deal this quarter.

The Marlin product line was produced at Remington plants in New York, Alabama and Lexington, but Ruger plans to move all that to its facilities.

When asked which ones, Killoy said, “It’s going to be split between at least two Ruger facilities, potentially all three, but I think it’s more likely to be split between the Mayodan, N.C., facility and the Newport, NH, facility, but that still remains to be seen.”

Is This The Beginning Of The End For Gun Control?

That’s the very optimistic take from Stanford Ph.D. candidate Scott Borgeson, who writes in a new column at the Stanford Review that the millions of new gun owners across the country this year heralds the impending demise of the gun control movement.

Borgeson believes that the influx of new gun owners, most of whom have purchased a firearm for self-defense because of concerns over riots and unrest in recent months, has the potential to upend support for gun control laws at both the state and federal level.

Continue reading “”

Cultural Superiority Isn’t Racism: Why Western Values Underpin the World’s Best Countries

Elements of the left and their allies in the media are constantly driving this point home: White people are bad and so is the culture that they have created. Everything we value as a society is bad and, more than that, little more than an ex post facto justification for the subjugation of non-whites. Western culture is white culture, and all things white are bad.

But as with everything else which these elements of the left and their allies in the media push, this is simply false. While the overlap between white people – that is, people of European descent and some Christian populations in the Caucasus – and Western culture is undeniable, it is likewise undeniable that Western culture is no longer the exclusive domain of whites. What we can call, without the slightest bit of stretching the truth, Western culture is present not just in Western Europe, North America and Australia, but also in former British colonies such as Israel, Singapore and Hong Kong.

What’s more, a country simply being part of Europe does not make it “Western” in any meaningful sense. While there is a certain Western cultural continuum based around Christianity that extends from Lisbon to Vladivostok, it would be overly simplistic (and indeed, a bit demeaning) to label the post-Soviet countries as “Western.” They have a similar set of cultural values rooted in Christianity, however, even the introduction of democracy has not made many post-Soviet and post-colonial nations more liberal in the true sense of the word – open markets, an emphasis on free speech, strong private property rights, an independent, impartial judiciary, and the primacy of the individual over that of the group.

Throughout this article we will provide some terms to define what we mean by “Western culture.” We will also make the case that Western cultural values have a universal aspect in the sense that they can be applied with success anywhere in the world, that these values are objectively superior to other value sets at maximizing human freedom, quality of life, and potential, and that the belief in this superiority has nothing to do with “racism” in the sense that it is commonly understood by ordinary people.

One demonstration of the proof that these values are objectively superior is that “people vote with their feet”, as Dr. Jordan Peterson points out: “The fundamental assumptions of Western civilization are valid. Here’s how you know: Which countries do people want to move away from? Not ours. Which countries do people want to move to? Ours! Guess what, they work better. And it’s not because we went around the world stealing everything we could get our hands on. It’s because we got certain fundamental assumptions right – and thank God for that.”

Table of Contents

What Are Western Values?

Cultural Superiority isn't Racism: Why Western Values Underpin the World’s Best Countries

Before going any further, it is necessary to define what we mean by “Western values.” Indeed, what we mean by this is very specific and has a basis not in the West at large, but specifically in Anglo-Saxon culture. Virtually all of the values that we will identify in this article as being “Western” are perhaps more accurately termed “Anglo-Saxon values.” However, as the former term is more concise, succinct and in greater general use, we will use “Western values” throughout this article.

So what are these values? What is their origin? Where do they come from?

Again, it is our belief that what we call “Western values” are rooted firmly in the Anglo-Saxon tradition above all else. The formalization of these values can be found in the Magna Carta, but this simply codifies values that had been practiced in long standing in post-Anglo-Saxon Britain and likely long before it in some sense, going back to the days when the Angles and Saxons roamed the border regions between what is now Germany and Denmark.

While the Magna Carta is a complicated document, for our purposes it means something succinct and simple: it means that the king is not above the law.

There are a number of principles that flow from this general recognition that form the bedrock of Western civilization: Legal norms apply to everyone regardless of social class. The right to a fair trial by a jury of one’s peers and the right to face one’s accuser in open court. The right to one’s own property and the right to defend that property using deadly force. While these rights have all been hemmed in – in extreme ways in some cases, particularly since the events of September 11, 2001 – the point is that they form the bedrock of our legal structure and value culture in the West.

To boil this down to a single sentence: the West believes that men have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and that these rights can only be deprived through due process of law. Both national constitutions and prevailing moral attitudes prevent angry mobs or powerful oligarchs from systematically depriving unpopular and powerless minorities of their rights. Continue reading “”

More fantasies from his dementia

Off-duty police officer shoots armed robbery suspect at Dearborn Heights 7-Eleven

DEARBORN HEIGHTS, Mich. (FOX 2) – An off-duty Detroit police officer shot and wounded an armed robber inside a 7-Eleven on Cherry Hill Friday.

Just before 4 p.m., a male suspect entered the store near Inkster for an armed robbery in Dearborn Heights. The off-duty police officer had words with him, before an exchange of shots, Michigan State Police say.

The officer was not injured, but the suspect was wounded. He was transported to a nearby hospital and is in critical condition.

History Demands We Wake Up the Woke

Editorial cartoonist Branco recently designed artwork showing an Antifa donkey with BLM explosives in its hand threatening America with, “Biden wins or the country gets it.”

At first blush, it seems extreme. But is it?

Most liberal “woke” do not participate in violence. But their blind silence on riots and authoritarianism perpetrated by their fellow leftists is a mindless stab in the heart of their own future liberty.

They refuse to view anything that doesn’t fit what they believe is their compassionate narrative, and seem oblivious to the human cost of socialism and its better-dressed uncle, communism. Thinking Constitutional protections only apply to them, they holler “love not hate” while normalizing censorship and threats to anyone who disagrees with their left-wing talking points.

It is almost as if history doesn’t exist for the woke. Yet Americans who have fled oppressive regimes know the erosion of human rights at the core of leftism and socialism doesn’t occur overnight.

Like Katarina Lindley, a successful family physician who is a leader in the osteopathic family physician community, and a board member for DPC Action, an organization supporting doctor/patient-based healthcare reforms.

She started out as Katarina Sokolic, a Croatian girl born in Soviet Yugoslavia in the 1970s behind the Iron Curtain of hunger and despair.

Katarina learned about oppression early when instructed to keep her family’s religious faith secret as it could cause her father to lose his job in a time of unrelenting unemployment. She escaped her homeland in its early post-Soviet phase, trading violence and suffering under a different leftist regime for America.

According to Katarina, “it took years to realize Yugoslavia was not ‘utopia.’ Eventually, everything was controlled by government, and freedom of thought was highly discouraged.”

Midwest physician “Elizabeth Williams” fled Liberia at 14. Her family was chased off ancestral lands by leftist Liberian president Charles Taylor after her father spoke against Taylor’s suppression of speech.

As Elizabeth notes, “first they didn’t allow us to air our views. That led to their stealing our entire lives.”

Left-wing violence destabilized Colombia for decades, and led to wholesale murder of hundreds of thousands and displacement of millions. Young “Enrique Velez,” who now lives in the Washington, DC area, recalls “my family saw kidnapping and extortion of friends and family.

“My parents made the difficult decision to join millions of displaced people after my father was held up and threatened by leftist groups. In America, we finally felt safe. Many families do not get the opportunity to flee here. We pray this country never experiences the same thing.

These now-liberated Americans have real fear for our future. The obliviousness of the woke heightens that fear.

Socialism was previously abhorrent to Americans, but has been sold to America’s youth as “progress,” thanks in part to the false, glorified view Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders presents of central control. It has permeated the ranks of the Democrat’s progressive leaders.

The socialism embraced by the wokes has a history of global oppression. Chairman Mao “freed” Chinese peasants by murdering 45 million of them. National Socialist Adolf Hitler harnessed his leftist power base by murdering six million Jews. Wikipedia has an entire page dedicated to “Mass killing under communist regimes.”

Totalitarianism starts out as the rhetorically more benign socialism. First they come for books and newspapers, then guns, then property, then people’s lives.

The woke may argue these horrors would never come to America. But if they opened their eyes and their minds, they’d know it’s already here, and they are ushering it in.

Social and mainstream media are suppressing and censoring content critical of the Democrat candidate for president. Citizens participating in a New York Jews for Trump convoy were attacked and children threatened with pepper spray by a leftist demonstrator. Liberal officials are closing houses of worship but allowing leftist riots.

Antifa and Black Lives Matter are radical left/Marxist groups who do not embrace peace. Their rioting and blind eye toward looting has cost countless billions and robbed minority and immigrant business owners of life savings and livelihoods. These groups and their woke supporters do not free people—they enslave them to tyrannical mobs and oppressive government.

History is a lesson book. Americans who lived it, or understand it, must explain to the woke that they are sleeping through a montage that heralds an oppression which will eventually include them.

Thanks to liberal educators and entertainment culture, young people are not even aware that socialism is the precursor of abject misery, and the loss of even the smallest of freedoms.

Kat Lindley says America is a beacon of hope. Katarina Sokolic fears a nation that loses its liberties to the deliberately misinformed will never get it back.

That would leave freedom seekers nowhere left to go.

American hostage Philip Walton rescued in dramatic military operation: Officials
Walton was abducted recently in Niger, where he had been living.

An American citizen abducted last week in Niger has been rescued during a high-risk U.S. military raid in neighboring Nigeria, officials told ABC News early Saturday.

The mission was undertaken by elite commandos as part of a major effort to free the U.S. citizen, Philip Walton, 27, before his abductors could get far after taking him captive in Niger on Oct. 26, counterterrorism officials told ABC News.

The operation involved the governments of the U.S., Niger and Nigeria working together to rescue Walton quickly, sources said. The CIA provided intelligence leading to Walton’s whereabouts and Marine Special Operations elements in Africa helped locate him, a former U.S. official said.

Then the elite SEAL Team Six carried out a “precision” hostage rescue mission and killed all but one of the seven captors, according to officials with direct knowledge about the operation.

“They were all dead before they knew what happened,” another counterterrorism source with knowledge told ABC News. Continue reading “”

Fourth Circuit Asked to Strike Down Age Limit for Handguns

RICHMOND, Va. (CN) — A Fourth Circuit panel seemed open to the idea of rolling back the federal 21-year age limit to purchase a handgun during a hearing Friday afternoon.

The dispute involves two Virginians, Tanner Hirschfeld and Natalia Marshall, both under the age of 21, who sought to purchase handguns from a federally licensed firearms dealer. They were rejected under the Gun Control Act of 1968 and filed a federal lawsuit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, but U.S. District Judge Glen Conrad dismissed their case last year.

Conrad, a George W. Bush appointee, relied on Congress’ history of regulating firearms sales, as well as medical research into the mental capacity of those under 21 and their predisposition for poor judgement that leads to more crimes being committed, as grounds to toss the lawsuit.

“The challenged laws also do not prevent handgun purchases from non-FFL [federal firearms licensee] parties, and alternatively, 18-to-20-year-olds are permitted to receive handguns from their parents,” Conrad wrote a year ago, noting there were other avenues for the plaintiff’s to achieve their goal.

But at the Fourth Circuit hearing Friday, U.S. Circuit Judges Julius Richardson, a Donald Trump appointee, and Steven Agee, a George W. Bush appointee, appeared more interested in how the Founding Fathers would examine the restrictions currently in place.

“Currently minor means less than 18 to buy cigarettes but it’s 21 to buy alcohol,” Richardson said during the remote hearing. “At the time of the founding, firearm possession was permitted for those under the age of 21.”

Hirschfeld and Marshall’s Charlottesville-based attorney Elliott Harding agreed and noted the Founding Fathers, and the Constitution they created, included age restrictions on things like political office, something they could have added to gun ownership if they saw fit.

“If the founders wanted to put an age limit on the Second Amendment they knew how to do so,” Harding said. “The people could have added an age limit via amendment as well.” Continue reading “”

Walmart Removes, Then Returns, Guns & Ammo Displays At Stores In Response To Week of “Civil Unrest”
The flip-flopping removals were announced ahead of the presidential election as leaders around the country prepare for protests or possible riots.

Walmart is reversing its decision to remove guns and ammunition from store floors, which the company announced earlier this week it would do because of ongoing “civil unrest.” Meanwhile, officials around the country are preparing for the possibility of more civil unrest next week following the results of the presidential election.

According to a Thursday piece from The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news, Walmart sent a letter to store managers on Wednesday asking that staff remove firearms from shelves, “due to the current unrest in isolated areas of the country and out of an abundance of caution.” The report specified that Walmart said customers could continue to purchase guns and ammunition, but that the products themselves wouldn’t be displayed in the stores.

In a statement to multiple outlets earlier in the week, a Walmart spokesman also said, “We have seen some isolated civil unrest and as we have done on several occasions over the last few years, we have moved our firearms and ammunition off the sales floor as a precaution for the safety of our associates and customers.”

But the company reversed its decision on Friday, making another statement to multiple outlets that said, “After civil unrest earlier this week resulted in damage to several of our stores … we asked stores to move firearms and ammunition from the sales floor …. As the current incidents have remained geographically isolated, we have made the decision to begin returning these products to the sales floor today.” Continue reading “”

This was a pretty much forgone conclusion. One states judicial process would have to be pretty raw for another state to tell them where they get off.

Illinois authorities extradite Kyle Rittenhouse to Wisconsin

WAUKEGAN, Ill. (AP) — A 17-year-old from Illinois accused of killing two demonstrators in Kenosha, Wisconsin, has been extradited to stand trial on homicide charges, with sheriff’s deputies in Illinois handing him over to their counterparts in Wisconsin shortly after a judge on Friday approved the contested extradition.

In his afternoon ruling that rejected Kyle Rittenhouse’s bid to remain in Illinois, Judge Paul Novak noted that defense attorneys had characterized the Wisconsin charges as politically motivated.

“This Illinois court shall not examine any potential political impact a Wisconsin District Attorney potentially considered in his charging decision,” Novak’s six-page ruling said. He added that it is not for an Illinois judge to “reevaluate probable cause determined by a Wisconsin court.” Continue reading “”

Police say clerk’s husband stopped robbery with gunshots

Update: Dequan Lamar Rushing was arrested Wednesday and jailed in the Washington County Detention Center under $151,000 bond awaiting a Sessions Court appearance set for Thursday.

A Georgia man was arrested Tuesday on robbery, assault and kidnapping charges after being shot by a store clerk’s husband during a hold-up, according to Johnson City police.

The shooting, which police described as self-defense, happened at Scotchman, 1101 E. Unaka Ave., around 10:15 p.m.

Before the Scotchman incident, police responded to Tri City Wholesale Tobacco, 2518 S. Roan St., on a report of an attempted armed robbery. In that incident, police said a man demanded money from the clerk, but he left with nothing. Police said that at some point in the robbery the man fired a pistol inside the store. No one was injured in that incident.

Police had a description of the would-be robber and were looking for him.

Around 10:15, officers were dispatched to a report of a robbery at the Scotchman.

In that incident, the clerk complied with the man’s demands while being threatened with a firearm and controlled by the man, police said.

The clerk’s husband, who has a valid handgun carry permit, intervened and shot the man two times in self-defense after the man pointed the weapon at him. Witnesses gave the police a description of the man, which matched the alleged robber from the first attempt.

A police K9 located Rushing nearby with two gunshot wounds. He refused officers’ commands to surrender, so the K9 was sent in to apprehend him.

Rushing was taken into custody and transported to an area medical facility, where he remained in serious but stable condition on Wednesday.