Analysis: What Biden’s Afghanistan Disaster Means for Gun Policy

When it comes to gun policy, there are two big takeaways I see from the debacle of the past week in Afghanistan.

The first is one that we really didn’t need this disaster in order to learn. It’s one that’s been demonstrated countless times throughout human history. But it’s also one that President Joe Biden has yet to learn: Military superiority doesn’t guarantee victory.

In June, as he’d done before, the president insisted that resisting a modern military’s overwhelming force is effectively impossible.

“Those who say the blood of… ‘the blood of patriots,’ you know, and all the stuff about how we’re going to have to move against the government,” Biden said in a speech. “Well, the tree of liberty is not watered with the blood of patriots. What’s happened is that there have never been—if you wanted or if you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons.”

Of course, the Taliban have recaptured the whole of Afghanistan without the use of F-15s or nuclear weapons. They did it without ever being capable of taking on the American military in open combat or creating soldiers anywhere near the quality of our own.

And they are far from the first to do so. The lesson has been taught repeatedly throughout the years. Whether by the Viet Cong or our own Founding Fathers. Many didn’t need a new teacher, let alone one composed of terrorist barbarians already imposing their own civilian gun-confiscation scheme, to learn this lesson. And I’m not sure President Biden will learn it this time either.

The second takeaway is a bit more subtle but also more directly applicable to the immediate political situation around guns in America.

The president’s stubborn refusal to change course or even admit any failure in the face of calamity provides further evidence for how he’ll handle the rest of his agenda. Or, at the very least, the parts of his agenda he is particularly invested in personally.

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The specifics of these Q&A as supplied by the White House

Q    Thank you, Mr. President.  You just said that you would keep a laser-focus on counterterrorism efforts and that you don’t see as great of a threat of terrorism from Afghanistan as other parts of the world.  But if you and your administration so badly misassessed how quickly the Taliban would sweep through Afghanistan and we no longer have an embassy there from which to run intelligence operations, how can you at all be confident of your assessment of the risk of terrorism and the ability of the U.S. to conduct over-the-horizon missions to keep it in check?  Can you tell Americans that they’re safe and will remain safe from terror attacks in Afghanistan?

THE PRESIDENT:  [which for whatever reason didn’t make it on the tweet]
I think you’re comparing apples and oranges.  One question was whether or not the Afghan forces we trained up would stay and fight in their own civil war they had going on.

No one — I shouldn’t say “no one” — the consensus was that it was highly unlikely that in 11 days they’d collapse and fall, and the leader of Afghanistan would flee the country.

That’s a very different question than whether or not there is the ability to observe whether or not large groups of terrorists began to accumulate in a particular area in Afghanistan to plot against the United States of America.  That’s why we retained an over-the-horizon capability to go in and do something about that if that occurs — if that occurs.

But in the meantime, we know what’s happening around the world.  We know what’s happening in terms of what’s going on in other countries, where there is the significant rise of terrorist organizations in the Middle East, in East Africa, and other places.

And so, the bottom line is: We have to do — we’re dealing with those terrorist threats from other parts of the world in failed states without permanent military — without permanent military presence there.  We have to do the same in Afghanistan.

Q    And, sir, just on that initial assessment: We’ve learned, over the last 24 hours, that there was a dissent cable from the State Department —

THE PRESIDENT:  Sure.

Q    — saying that the Taliban would come faster through Afghanistan.  Can you say why, after that cable was issued, the U.S. didn’t do more to get Americans out?

THE PRESIDENT:  We’ve got all kind of cables, all kinds of advice.  If you notice, it ranged from this group saying that — they didn’t say it’d fall when it would fall — when it did fall — but saying that it would fall; to others saying it wouldn’t happen for a long time and they’d be able to sustain themselves through the end of the year.

I made the decision.  The buck stops with me.  I took the consensus opinion.  The consensus opinion was that, in fact, it would not occur, if it occurred, until later in the year.  So, it was my decision.

We Have No President

Diplomacy was back. Leadership was back. The adults were back in the White House. That’s what we were sold. That’s what we were told. Liberal reporters basked in the afterglow. The political class breathed a sigh of relief. And the honeymoon commenced. Everything Joe did had an aura of being “historic.” The man got ice cream and this media establishment would go bananas. And then, reality hit. They forgot about our longest war in Afghanistan which was unraveling. And Joe’s inability to get a handle on the crisis shows that the White House has truly become the Home of the Merciful Rest. We have no leader.

Joe Biden still has not owned this crisis. He has yet to say, ‘I screwed up.’ He keeps saying the buck stops with me. Sure, that is until the images of desperate Afghans trying to get inside the airport at Kabul are blasted on the television sets. Then, it rapidly becomes ‘it’s Trump’s fault’ which is a talking point that his people tried to peddle but didn’t stick. It’s simply too pathetic to even repeat. What’s more disturbing is how this administration thought it was fine to simply ignore the collapse of Afghanistan. Maybe the liberal media wouldn’t cover it. It explains why Joe thought he could remain on vacation at Camp David. It’s why Jen Psaki tried to take the week off. It was only after EVERYONE slammed them that they poured their pina coladas out and returned to work. Yes, some serious adulting here—true profiles in leadership here.

The chaos in Kabul was simply too great to ignore. This is our longest war. We have operational infrastructure here—and it all went to crap rapidly. The thing is we knew this was going to happen. Did anyone really think the Afghan government whose credibility arguably died in 2009 when Hamid Karzai stuffed ballot boxes and committed widespread voter fraud, would last? The Taliban were going to make massive gains. We knew this. Days after Biden’s July 8 remarks where he said the Afghan government would remain and that this wouldn’t be like Saigon 1975, the State Department sent a memo painting a much different picture. It was obviously ignored.

Joe was so obsessed with leaving on August 31 that he didn’t have a plan to get 15,000 American citizens out of the country before then. It’s obvious. We’re scrambling. And we’re not doing anything to expand our perimeter or venture out to get our citizens out of harm’s way. We’re trusting the Taliban to behave. We’re trusting terrorists to behave. The adults are back in the White House, they said.

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Occupants shoot intruder multiple times at residence in south Toledo early Friday morning

TOLEDO, Ohio — A would-be burglar is fighting for his life after being shot overnight. This happened around 1 a.m. Friday morning on the 200 block of Knower Street in south Toledo.

Toledo police tell us that the man tried to burglarize a home that was occupied. He made it through the front door and was met with force when a female resident fired at him, hitting him multiple times. That man then stumbled away and fell onto the front lawn where he was found by medics. Life-saving procedures were being done on the man as he was being put into the life squad. He was rushed to a hospital with critical injuries. We are told that he did have a pulse.

The woman who fired the gun was taken in for questioning as standard protocol. We are also told that there were several children inside of the home when the man entered. Nobody else was injured.

The man’s identity was not known by Toledo police as of late Friday morning. According to the incident report, more than one occupant of the house fired at the intruder, and a male and female were listed as occupants of the house who were involved. The intruder’s injuries were described as life-threatening.

Some doctors quietly secretly came up with a plan that if they ran out of ICU beds, then vaccinated patients would get priority. After this was reported, [likely because one, or more, of the doctors involved realized how morally and ethically corrupt this was, and spilled the beans to the newspaper] the doctors backed down. Good, but not good enough.

An idea like this should never have been even imagined in the first place.

So, someone goes to the hospital for whatever.  The staff there check and find out the patient is unvaccinated and then give them a low priority for treatment?

I can guarantee, with Metaphysical Certitude™, if that happens, an angry parent or spouse will seek treatment for their sick ones at gunpoint. And making medical staff into the arbiter of who lives and who dies, based on social status, is one of the worst things that a society can do.

We must be able to trust doctors because we put our lives in their hands.
If doctors decide that “those people” don’t deserve the same level of care then that trust is destroyed and bad things will happen. Those medicos made the right decision this time because of public pressure after it was aired to the public.

But if crap-for-brains shenanigans like this continue, the medical community is going to rue the day such an idea popped into their pinheads.

North Texas doctor’s group retreats on policy saying vaccination status to be part of care decisions
This would have been a big change in health care, and it was all outlined in a memo obtained by the Watchdog.

Updated at 8:15 p.m. Aug. 19, 2021: After this story was posted, Dr. Mark Casanova gave interviews to local media and revised his story. He described the memo to the task force as a “homework assignment.” In a reversal, he told NBC-5 that vaccinations should not be among the factors hospitals should consider when making critical care triage decisions.

Original story published Aug. 19, 2021: North Texas doctors have quietly developed a plan that seeks to prepare for the possibility that due to the COVID-19 surge the region will run out of intensive-care beds.

If that happens, for the first time, doctors officially will be allowed to take vaccination status of sick patients into account along with other triage factors to see who gets a bed.

A copy of an internal memo written by Dr. Robert Fine, co-chair of the North Texas Mass Critical Care Guideline Task Force, was sent to members of the task force — and leaked to The Watchdog. It summarizes the latest work by the task force, a volunteer group that periodically updates medical guidelines for hospitals in our region. There are about 50 members from various hospitals in the group. Although their recommendations are not enforceable, the guidelines are generally followed.

The one-page summary memo is a “heads up” alert in the event things get worse, says Dr. Mark Casanova, director of clinical ethics for Baylor University Medical Center and a spokesperson for the task force. After Monday’s meeting, doctors had yet to make plans to inform the public.

“We’re trying to decide how to explain this addition to the public,” Casanova said.

But after studying the memo and interviewing doctors involved in the decision for two hours this week, The Watchdog can explain it to you.

Although doctors make triage decisions all the time, the proposed guideline addition is significant. Casanova predicted that if this change were copied by others medical care, for as long as the crisis persists, “is going to look and feel different for everybody who is alive right now in the United States of America.”

Yet a leading medical ethicist who studies how COVID-19 affects communities says he worries that adding vaccination status to the triage of patients will unfairly harm low-income people and people of color. These groups are historically disadvantaged when it comes to obtaining proper medical care.

‘Stomach-turning possibility’: Biden didn’t get Afghan allies out of the country earlier because he ‘was afraid of what Fox News might say’

Well, this is ridiculous. The overarching reason President Biden didn’t get tens of thousands of Afghan allies out of the country sooner is incompetence, both on his part and his administration’s. It’s not much more complicated than that.

Catherine Rampell is an op-ed columnist for the Washington Post, and she posits a number of theories why the Biden administration didn’t get more of our allies out of Afghanistan sooner. Maybe he didn’t want to project a lack of faith in the Afghan government. Maybe people just didn’t want to leave. Or there’s the “more stomach-turning possibility” that Biden didn’t act sooner because the president “was afraid of what Fox News might say.”

So it’s the fault of Fox News, really.

Not surprisingly, it’s a demoncrap that supports this relic from the Jim Crow era.

Repeal of NC pistol permit law heads to governor’s desk

RALEIGH, N.C. — State senators voted Wednesday to repeal the state’s pistol purchase permit requirement.

Current state law requires people who want to buy a handgun to get a permit from their county sheriff’s office. The sheriff performs a background check on the applicant.

Gun rights supporters have advocated for the repeal for years, saying it’s duplicative because there’s now a national background check system, NICS.

Sen. Chuck Edwards , R-Henderson, said the additional permit requirement infringes on gun owners’ rights.

“It’s been brought to my attention that purchase permits are used to obstruct gun purchases by sheriffs who just simply do not want to allow citizens their Second Amendment rights,” said Edwards. “This, it’s become obvious to me, is tired law that’s ready to go away.”

However, NICS is required only for federally licensed gun dealers. Many people buy guns online, from individuals or at a gun show, purchases that don’t require a federal background check.

Sen. Natasha Marcus , D-Mecklenburg, said the pistol permit is “the only background check” in those cases, and eliminating it would create a huge and dangerous loophole.

“It would suddenly become completely legal for anyone to purchase a handgun, without any background check required, so long as they buy it from an individual or at a gun show, or via the Internet with an in-person handoff,” Marcus said. “Instead of creating these dangerous loopholes, we should be strengthening gun safety.”

Marcus also pointed out that the federal system includes only criminal convictions. It doesn’t include recent arrests, pending charges or charges that were dropped. The local check, she said, catches all those.

In the past fiscal year, she said, over 2,300 permit applicants in Mecklenburg County alone passed their NICS check but failed the local background check.

“It is irresponsible, in my opinion, to allow someone who’s awaiting a hearing on a domestic abuse charge, for example, to purchase a handgun. The permit was in place to stop that, and we should not repeal it,” Marcus said.

She noted that several sheriffs don’t support the repeal. But Sen. Ralph Hise , R-Mitchell, countered that the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association does.

“This has only been a process that is effective for making sure that sheriffs in large urban areas are able to slow down the process,” Hise said.

The bill passed the Senate 27-20, with no Democratic support. The measure passed the House earlier this year. It now goes to the desk of Gov. Roy Cooper, who has so far vetoed any attempts to relax state gun laws.

SloJoe believes POTUS possesses powers that he doesn’t have

Biden threatens action against governors who refuse to force masks on school children

During a speech given by President Joe Biden on Wednesday regarding COVID-19 response and vaccination programs, Biden slammed states that have banned the requirement of masks in school, announcing that government action will be taken against these states and their governors.

AFGHANISTAN? IT’S A-OK!

Today Joe Biden, seeking damage control, was interviewed by Democratic Party loyalist George Stephanopoulos. I am not sure how long the interview was, or whether it is available online in its entirety; this is the longest excerpt I have seen. Biden says nothing went wrong with the withdrawal from Afghanistan that is now under way. Intelligence, planning, tactics–all perfect. Chaos was predestined, in his view, and he wouldn’t change a thing

George S. is apparently too loyal to his party to ask the obvious question: Why didn’t you get the civilians out before stopping air support to the Afghan forces, closing Bagram Air Force Base, and starting to pull our soldiers out?

And, no doubt a certain amount of chaos in Afghanistan was inevitable following our pullout, no matter how well it was managed. But that chaos didn’t have to include thousands of American citizens desperately trying to fight their way through Taliban checkpoints to get to the Kabul airport. Nor did thousands of Afghans who helped our effort need to be left to the sadistic ravages of the Taliban.

If this is what Joe Biden considers a success, it is hard to imagine what a failure would look like.

Also, at one point Stephanopoulos starts to ask about the hundreds of Afghans packed into transport planes and photographed falling off of airplanes, and Biden interrupts, saying “That was four days ago, five days ago!”

It was a revealing moment, first because in fact, it was day before yesterday. And second, because the point is completely irrelevant. The airport fiasco will be evidence of Biden’s inept conduct of the withdrawal for many years to come. Two days or four, what is the difference? The brief exchange shows how sensitive Biden is to the video and photographic evidence that his management of the withdrawal has been a disaster.

Germantown homicide under investigation after homeowner shoots, kills alleged intruder

GERMANTOWN, Md. (WDVM) — Montgomery County Police are investigating a shooting in Germantown after a homeowner allegedly shot an intruder trying to get into his home Monday evening.

Police say they got a call from the homeowner around 7:30 pm, saying someone was trying to get into his home along Futura Ct in Germantown. The homeowner told police he shot the man trying to get in.

Officers say the alleged intruder was found dead at the scene. Police have identified the deceased as 31-year-old, Louis Alfredo Sanchez, Jr. of Germantown, also saying the two men were known to each other.

MCPD officers interviewed the homeowner and passed details onto the Montgomery County State’s Attorneys office. They’ll decide whether to file charges against the homeowner for shooting the alleged intruder.

Quote O’ The Day:
“Everybody’s gangster til they hear the bang bang”

Attention Gun Control Groups: This is What Safety Really Means

When the establishment media talks about “gun safety advocates,” it is typically about some gun control activist group pushing a political point, so when a real gun safety effort could be spotlighted, the press could get an eyeful.

That’s an opportunity looming in Detroit this coming weekend in Detroit, when veteran firearms instructor and Second Amendment activist Rick Ector, founder of Legally Armed in Detroit, hopes to greet a legion of women to a genuine firearms safety and training course.

Ector has been offering this training opportunity for a decade, according to WWMT. In his first effort, 50 women showed up. Last year, more than 1,900 attended, the story noted. Ector confirmed that in a telephone chat Monday afternoon. He accomplished that feat by utilizing two ranges, one hosting some 1,200 people and the other more than 700. This year, he will also run the operation on two ranges simultaneously.

A past speaker and participant in the annual Gun Rights Policy Conference, co-sponsored by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and the Second Amendment Foundation, Ector is dedicated to making his city safer by acquainting women with firearms and erasing fears rather than promoting them.

According to his post on Facebook, this year’s participants have a full agenda and his goal is to train 4,000 women this weekend. They will enjoy free gun rentals, free ammunition, free hearing and eye protection and free shooting lessons, but they better sign up fast because space will be limited.

The importance of genuine firearms safety and education cannot be overstated for anyone living in a large city, especially considering the murder rates. Detroit is experiencing a bad year, but so far its body count is only approaching half of that already posted in Chicago to the west about 285 miles.

Over the weekend, according to Fox News, nine people were killed and 52 others injured in shootings across the city. One of the victims was a 7-year-old girl, and her younger sister was wounded in the city’s Belmont Central neighborhood.

According to the popular website “Heyjackass.com,” as of Monday there have been 46 murders in the city so far in August, and another 235 people have been wounded by criminal gunfire. Another homicide was posted but did not involve a firearm. For the year so far, the website says, there have been 486 murders involving guns out of the 512 slayings so far posted.

So far this year, the website said, Chicago has racked up 486 murders, and that would include the slaying of Chicago Police Officer Ella French, killed in the line of duty. Two brothers have been arrested in that murder.

Just to point out

Do you notice the trigger finger discipline in the Taliban pictures?
That’s U.S. military weapon safety doctrine on display.
There is intelligence that many of the ANA (Afghan National Army) trainees were either Taliban or tribal warlord troops, sent to enlist in the ANA to get training, and gain knowledge of US weapons, then desert back to their true allegiances.

These people may be illiterate members of tribes of goat herders, but they are not stupid.

My Friend Tedd
by Jim Taylor

Yesterday a long-time friend died. He was a good man .. a gentle man … an artist at making grips for pistols. He was a man who loved his country. He was honest and trustworthy, faithful, and kind. He had major physical issues most of his life and faced them without complaining or becoming bitter. He was determined to live life and he embarked on adventures that many a man without his issues would hesitate to undertake. Life is gonna seem more empty than ever without him.

Say everything that needs to be said with your friends and loved ones today! Forgive those who have hurt you and ask forgiveness where you know you have made mistakes. None of us are assured of tomorrow and it is best to live without as many regrets as we can.

I am going to miss Tedd. His humor. His wisdom. His unique character and personality. I have hope that he is enjoying a reunion with all those friends and family who have gone before him. And I hope he is keeping coffee hot on a fire by the big gate so that on the day I arrive, we will share a cup and pick up where we were interrupted.

08/12/21

Sad news. Tedd Adamovich passed away this morning with complications from Covid.

Tedd was a good, good man, a fine grip maker and long time Shootist. He gave us so much over the years, including his wisdom. I will miss his humor, his politics and his intelligence. Some of him lives on in the books that he wrote.

But not enough. He was my friend.

Tedd took over ‘Bear Hug Grips’ when Kermit ‘Deacon’ Deason passed away back in 1994, renaming them ‘Blu Magnum Grips’.

This is worse than Saigon
America’s humiliation in Afghanistan confirms that the woke West is utterly incapable of standing up for itself.

Everyone is saying it’s like Saigon in 1975. Helicopters evacuating an American embassy. Chaotic, distressing scenes at the local airport as American allies, or just plain fearful people, desperately try to flee the country. American officials convincing absolutely nobody with their unhinged claims that the ‘mission has been successful’ (in Anthony Blinken’s words). It’s clear for all to see, commentators insist: Kabul in 2021 is a replay of Saigon in 1975. America humiliated, its enemies ascendant.

Yet here’s the brutal truth: what is happening right now is worse than Saigon. Yes, America’s defeat in Vietnam was an epoch-shaping humiliation for the self-styled defenders of freedom in the Cold War clash with the ‘Evil Empire’ and its communist allies. But the routing of the US in Afghanistan, the alarmingly swift collapse of its allies in the Afghan government, the fall of Kabul like a house of cards, and the fact that Operation Enduring Freedom, launched in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, has ended with the endurance of the Taliban instead, with victory for the bad guys – all of this represents the most significant moment of geopolitical decline for the US in decades. Indeed, it raises questions not only about America’s global standing, but also about its very purpose and meaning as a nation.

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The road from civilian disarmament to tyranny is short.

That was yesterday:

This is today:

Clerk shoots, kills person trying to rob 7-Eleven in Norfolk

NORFOLK, Va. — A man was shot and killed Sunday night after he tried to rob a 7-Eleven store, the Norfolk Police Department said.

Around midnight, police responded to the store at 1713 Colley Avenue after a gunshot victim was reported. Officers found Javier Garcia, 28, suffering from a life-threatening gunshot wound. Investigators think a clerk shot Garcia while he was trying to rob the store.

Police haven’t shared the clerk’s name.

Garcia was taken to a hospital where he later died from his injuries.

The police department said detectives are continuing to investigate the incident.