Armed St. Louis Man Who Confronted Gate-Crashing Protesters May Run for Senate
The Missouri man who earned attention last year for brandishing an assault rifle at Black Lives Matter protestors is considering a run for the U.S. Senate.
Mark McCloskey, a wealthy personal-injury lawyer, would be running for the seat to be vacated by the retirement of Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., Politico reported.
“I can confirm that it’s a consideration, yes,” McCloskey said in a brief interview on Tuesday.
New Argument From The Left: “Knife Fights” No Big Deal
I hate the phrase “gun violence prevention,” because in my view, we should looking at ways to reduce violence in general. If we’re trying to save lives, does it matter if the killer used a gun, a knife, or a bowling ball?
>Apparently so, at least on the Left. While “gun violence” is a scourge that can only be treated by turning the right to keep and bear arms into a criminal offense, knife violence is just one of those things. Oh, it’s not that it’s completely unserious, but it’s certainly nothing that would require lethal force to be used to prevent someone from being stabbed.
A Black teenage girl named Ma’Khia Bryant was killed because a police officer immediately decided to shoot her multiple times in order to break up a knife fight. Demand accountability. Fight for justice. #BlackLivesMatter.
— Valerie Jarrett (@ValerieJarrett) April 21, 2021
Of course, the incident in Columbus, Ohio that led to police fatally shooting a 16-year old girl wasn’t exactly a “knife fight” to begin with. From what we know so far, the only person who had a knife was the 16-year old who was shot, and the officer fired as she was preparing to stab another teenager.
None of that seems to matter to folks like President Obama’s national security advisor Valerie Jarrett, however.
(hint) The knife in the hands of the thugette
They cannot be this stupid, right? After CBS News was caught editing the bodycam footage of the police shooting of Adam Toledo in Chicago, which has also sparked outrage, NBC News decides to edit the 911 call concerning the officer-involved shooting in Ohio, where a 16-year-old was shot and killed after she tried to stab another person (via Columbus Dispatch):
In an unprecedented move, Columbus police showed body camera footage of the shooting of a 16-year-old girl by a Columbus police officer just hours after the incident on the Southeast Side.
The shooting, which happened about 20 minutes before a guilty verdict was announced in the trial of Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd, prompted hundreds to protest at the shooting site and Downtown.
The video shows an officer approaching a driveway with a group of young people standing there. In the video, it appears that the 16-year-old, identified now as Ma’Khia Bryant, who was moments later shot by police, pushes or swings at a person, who falls to the ground.
Bryant then appears to swing a knife at a girl who is on the hood of a car, and the officer fires his weapon what sounds like four times, striking Bryant, who died a short time later.
“It’s a tragic day in the city of Columbus. It’s a horrible, heartbreaking situation,” Mayor Andrew J. Ginther. “We felt transparency in sharing this footage, as incomplete as it is at this time” was critical.
Yeah, this word “appears” keeps popping up. It’s just another exercise in the liberal media being unable or unwilling, to tell the truth. The video is quite clear
Again with the “Not True Marxism”.
Short one today.
I’ve been listening to The Gulag Archipelago on Audible. I have to do it in bits and pieces with frequent breaks because my imagination is too good at turning the words of the narrator into an emotional visceral gut-punch of the true horror that lies behind them. I can only take so much at a time.
Too much darkness even for me.
So folk wanting to try to “sell” me on Communism/Socialism can just kiss right off. Doesn’t matter if this was “true socialism” or not. Doesn’t matter how you try to define “true Marxism” to make it “not this.” What matters is that every time folk selling Marxism to the masses gain power you end up with horrors like this.
Every. Time.
It has been said that insanity consists of doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Well, that’s neither a legally nor medically valid definition, but there is an element of truth to it. If you keep insisting on doing the same thing, which has always had the same results, and are all “This time for sure”, then there is something deeply, seriously wrong with you.
So take your socialism/communism, fold it so it’s all sharp corners, cover it in capsaicin oil, and shove it where the sun never shines.
That is all.
Of all the infringements of our basic right to self-protection, affirmed by the second amendment of the United States Constitution, HR-127, the bill proposed by Sheila Jackson Lee earlier this year, is the most egregious, the most dangerous, and the most blatantly unconstitutional.
For starters, it would make millions of people across the nation felons overnight. Countless gun owners over the age of 18 yet under the age of 21 will be forced to turn in their legally obtained and owned firearms or otherwise become felons. Millions of other gun owners will be forced to turn in legally obtained firearms and firearm accessories or else become felons. Those few firearms left will be subject to a burdensome tax and worse will be made a matter of public record, so that no burglar will ever need to worry about which houses to violate.
Any national gun registry will make the home addresses of all peaceful, law-abiding gun owners a matter of public record. Those who wish to rob and murder in safety, those who wish to initiate violence against those who consider gun owners their political opponents, and in the event of a total war with a country able to match the military might of our own will have a list of all men and women in the country in possession of a firearm.
This is all if the bill is passed peacefully, which it won’t. People will not allow their rights to be violated especially as people from both sides of the aisle have spent a year normalizing political violence. All law enforcement officers will all be forced to resign else they be considered oath breakers and stand for eternity with the likes of Marcus Junius Brutus, Benedict Arnold, and Damien Jones the man who the sponsor of this bill, Sheila Jackson Lee, protected from accusations of sexual assault by firing the aide who reported his abuse.
3/4 of States Are Now Stand Your Ground; only 12 Are Duty to Retreat
I wrote about this several months ago, but several states have gone stand-your-ground since then—Ohio, Arkansas, and now North Dakota—so I thought I’d repeat it.
[A.] The “duty to retreat” is something of a misnomer (though a very common one); it’s not actually a legally binding duty (the way a parent has a duty to support a minor child, or a driver has a duty to exercise reasonable care while driving). Rather, it’s a provision that, under certain circumstances, failing to retreat from a confrontation will effectively strip you of your right to use deadly force for self-defense.
AOC Introduces a New and Improved Green New Deal.
With Representative Ocasio-Cortez reintroducing her Green New Deal bill and Joe Biden pledging to halve carbon emissions in the U.S. in less than 10 years, and after the “Climate Summit” goes virtual on April 22, America is going to be so green we’ll be mistaken for an artichoke.
It’s too bad that’s not a real solution, but we’d at least be spared the ministrations of AOC and her climate police who are chomping at the bit to upend the lives of 300 million people.
“We’re going to transition to a 100 percent carbon free-economy, that is more unionized, more just, more dignified and guarantees more health care and housing than we ever have before,” Ocasio-Cortez said at a press conference overlooking the National Mall. “Do we intend on sending a message to the Biden administration that we need to go bigger and bolder? The answer is absolutely yes.”
If we’re more “dignified,” does that mean I have to wear a shirt around the house?
While these always deserve careful attention, overreaching bills like this are usually nothing more than a combination of political grandstanding and attempts to move the ‘Overton window’ to make less draconian bills appear more palatable.
Below The Radar – Handgun Purchaser Licensing Act of 2021
United States – -(AmmoLand.com)- Bad ideas are hard to kill, especially in Congress. One of the worst has been this notion of licensing gun owners at the federal level. This was something anti-Second Amendment extremists have wanted since 1968 – and you can read how angry Lyndon Baines Johnson was that such provisions were not in the Gun Control Act of 1968.
So, for over five decades, Second Amendment supporters have thwarted this goal of our enemies (and people who wish to inflict injustice on us are rightly described as enemies), who think that treating law-abiding gun owners like criminals is the answer to the misuse of firearms. We know it isn’t, as the Brevard County Sheriff lays out. But that hasn’t stopped anti-Second Amendment extremists from trying.
While Sheila Jackson Lee drew a lot of attention with HR 127, the Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act, a number of other licensing schemes have shown up in past Congresses, and they will likely show up in the current Congress, and in Congresses in the future.
One of those bad ideas that keep turning up is the Handgun Purchaser Licensing Act of 2021, known as S 770. We covered a similar version that was introduced in 2019 by Senator Chris Van Hollen and Representative Jamie Raskin. Van Hollen is again the Senate sponsor of this assault on the dignity and reputation of those who wish to exercise their Second Amendment rights.
Van Hollen, of course, doesn’t even tell states to impose it. He instead tries to bribe them with federal grants. It’s yet another insult from these Bloomberg stooges who seem eager to cast blame for high rates of violent crime on everyone but those who are really responsible.
Here’s the truth: Less than a fifth of the states in the Union require any form of licensing scheme. If anything, the overwhelming consensus (at least, what seems to be the consensus) among the states is that there is no need to license firearms owners at all. States like New Jersey, Illinois, and Massachusetts are the real outliers when it comes to firearms ownership. Those schemes don’t stop firearms from getting into the hands of bad guys.
In addition, what was noted on the web pages of Ammoland back then still applies. This legislative proposal is pretty much asking to create tragedies like the one involving Carol Bowne. Anti-Second Amendment extremists often claim they are trying to save lives, but it was an onerous law they want to extend nationwide that cost one woman her life at the hands of her abusive ex.
Second Amendment supporters should contact their Representative and Senators and politely urge them to oppose S 770, and instead seek to override state waiting periods and licensing schemes. They also should support the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action and Political Victory Fund to ensure that the current anti-Second Amendment regimes in the House, Senate, and White House are defeated at the ballot box as soon as possible.
‘Police’ were often termed ‘Peace Officers‘. It indicated they would keep the peace (stop blood feuds and riots) by presenting complainants and offenders before a ‘Justice of the Peace‘ where, as far as possible, impartial, fair handed justice would be dealt out.
Police aren’t really there to protect the people, but to protect criminals from vigilante justice dealt out on the street.
Go ahead and defund the police, but get ready for vigilante justice
Those who are calling to end or radically alter the way this country is policed don’t have a good grasp of American history.
There was a time when vast swaths of this country were not policed, or were extremely under-policed.
In the late 19th Century, just three Deputy U.S. Marshals — Bill Tilghman, Chris Madsen, and Heck Thomas — were responsible for patrolling what would later become the State of Oklahoma. Their exploits are legendary.
For most Americans living outside of the large eastern metropolitan areas at that time, justice simply didn’t exist unless they meted it out themselves.
The first American police department wasn’t established until 1844 in New York City.
Boston and Philadelphia didn’t follow suit until a decade later.
These early departments were modeled upon the British police — the forerunner of the London Metropolitan Police was formed in 1789 — but they did not have detectives and were more concerned with preventing civil disorder and deterring thievery through visible patrol than investigating and solving crime.
In the West things were different.
Law and order were late in coming.
As a result, groups of citizens would band together to combat a specific threat — usually cattle rustling, horse thievery or a murder spree.
These extrajudicial citizen groups were called regulators, although today they would certainly be called vigilantes.
In Western towns without a police force, businesses would fund some of these vigilance groups to protect their property at night when the shop owners slept.
Nationally at this time, state governments granted authority to local businesses to create their own police forces — such as the Coal and Iron Police of Pennsylvania — which were accountable solely to the local CEO.
These “police departments,” which were routinely used as strike-breakers, further eroded public confidence in law and order, and were little more than vigilantes themselves.
Then, as now, when civil society broke down, Americans chose to arm themselves.
‘I never expected I would touch my gun’: Dad pulls CCW gun to protect family in Westroads shooting
OMAHA, Neb. — A metro area dad said the choice was easy to grab his concealed carry weapon and protect his family as gunfire erupted at Westroads Mall Saturday.
“My daughter is getting baptized next weekend so I wanted to get a nice special outfit for her baptism,” Scott Tafoya said. As Tafoya was trying on a suit in Von Maur Saturday, his wife and two daughters went upstairs to shop.
He noticed commotion and saw people running. One man made eye contact with him. “I looked in his eyes and he yelled, ‘Shooter,’” Tafoya said. He took off upstairs to find his family. As he did, he grabbed his gun. His wife told him she heard gunfire.
“Every indication said our lives were in danger and I was going to do everything in my power to make sure we got out of there OK,” Tafoya said.
He’s a legal conceal carry permit holder, even though Westroads Mall is a weapon-free zone.
“I knew that if I ever pulled that out it would truly be a life and death situation and I would deal with the consequences later,” he said.
As Von Maur employees shuttled shoppers into a bathroom, he stood guard.
“I said I have a permit, I’m legal,” he said. He said he stood near the escalators to draw any threat away from where his family was.
“Everyone else on the third floor just got added into that because the best way to keep my family safe was to make sure nobody with ill intentions came up that escalator.” In that moment, he said he didn’t feel fear, but something else. “I was sad. Because I wasn’t expecting to, if it was real I didn’t think I was going to come home,” he said.
Tafoya said he took the bullets out of his gun and walked toward police with his hands up as soon as they arrived.
“I unloaded my weapon, I put it back in the holster where it was very visible that the slide was locked open. I put my permit in my hands and my hands above my head,” he said. He said police allowed him to leave without facing any charges.
“I don’t condone anyone breaking the law. I made the decision that was right for my family, and I stand behind it. I may still get in trouble for it, if I do, it was worth it,” he said.
Tafoya said gun-free zones put people at risk. “I do not want to be carrying a weapon ever. It’s not comfortable, I don’t like it, I wish there was not a need for it,” he said.
Tafoya said he’s been a permit holder for around four years.
“I never, never ever expected to ever touch my gun. But, I’m exceptionally thankful that I had it,” he said.
He adds this won’t discourage him from going to the mall. Westroads Mall said it will have a weapon sniffing dog on premises for the time being.
Asian Americans Create Gun Group as Ownership, Hate Crimes Rise.
A new gun group hoping to educate Asian Americans about gun rights and gun safety in response to rising hate crimes launched on Monday.
Asian American and Pacific Islander Gun Owners (AAPIGO) aims to provide training and representation to a demographic often overlooked in the conversation on guns. They have scheduled their first meet-and-greet range day for May 2 in Livermore, Calif. And they have already signed up 25 people for an informational course on how to apply for a California gun-carry permit followed by a group application drive designed to bring awareness to the rising threat of hate crimes against Asian Americans.
Racist attacks on Asians surged in 2020, with one report putting the figure at nearly 3,800 incidents and the Los Angeles Police Department reporting the rate of hate crimes against Asians more than doubling. Simultaneously, alongside other Americans, Asians began buying more guns. A gun dealer survey conducted by the National Shooting Sports Foundation found the number of Asian customers jumping 46 percent in the first half of 2020.
Now, AAPIGO wants to train those new Asian gun owners and equip them to protect themselves against racist attacks.
Dan Patrick has always seemed to be a wishy-washy standard operational squish politician when it comes to any civil rights matter.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Monday that the state Senate does not currently have the votes to pass permitless carry of handguns but that he will try to see if there is a “path” to change that.
The news from the Republican presiding officer of the Senate came days after the House approved a permitless carry bill, commonly referred to as “constitutional carry” by supporters.
“If we have the votes to pass a permitless carry bill off the Senate floor, I will move it,” Patrick said in a statement. “At this point we don’t have the votes on the floor to pass it. I plan to meet with law enforcement who oppose permitless carry and with the [National Rifle Association] and [Gun Owners of America] who support it to see if we can find a path that a majority of senators will vote to pass.”
In most cases, Senate bills require 18 votes from the 31-member chamber to be considered on the floor. There are only 18 GOP senators, so a permitless-carry bill would need the support of every Republican in the chamber to reach the floor — or at least one Democratic vote if any Republicans defect.
Some opine he’s setting his besotted self up for a presidential run in ’24.
John Boehner Says Gun Control Would Be Top Priority ‘if’ He Were Speaker
Former House Speaker John Boehner (R) indicated Sunday that gun control would be a top priority “if” he were Speaker now.
During an interview on CNN’s State of the Union, Boehner focused on what he thinks is the importance of reaching across the aisle.
The segment began with CNN’s Dana Bash claiming there have been “47 mass shootings in the United States in just over the last month.”
Bash provided no substantiation for the claim of 47 mass shootings. Instead, she just looked at Boehner and said, “Polls show that vast majorities of Americans support at least some new gun restrictions.”
She then noted that gun control was not passed after Sandy Hook when Boehner was Speaker, and asked if gun control would be a “top priority” now, were he Speaker again.
Boehner expressed hope that Republicans and Democrats will find “common ground” and affirmed it would be top priority “if” he were Speaker.
Breitbart News pointed to a Rasmussen Poll that showed 51 percent of likely voters believed more gun control would have have prevented the March 22, 2021, Boulder attack.
On April 15, 2021, Breitbart News reported a McLaughlin poll showing 72 percent of general election voters support the Second Amendment.
The McLaughlin poll also showed 73.4 percent of general election voters agreed that “the Founders understood the importance of law-abiding citizens right to legally own firearms for things like hunting, sport and personal protection.”
Louisiana bill allowing gun owners to carry concealed firearms without permit advances
Louisiana gun owners could carry concealed firearms without training or a permit under a bill advanced by a Senate committee Monday with a similar measure on deck in the House.
Supporters of Senate Bill 118 by Sen. Jay Morris, R-Monroe, testified the current law requiring training and permits to carry a concealed firearm are infringements on their Second Amendment right to bear arms.
“We shouldn’t need the government’s permission to defend ourselves,” said Chris Patron with Firearm Professionals of Louisiana.
Members of the Senate Judiciary C Committee vote 3-2 to report the bill favorably to the full Senate.
Twenty states currently allow what’s known as “constitutional carry” by supporters, which means gun owners can carry a concealed weapon without a permit.
Gun owners in Louisiana can legally carry guns without permits if they are visible.
“The mood for constitutional carry is gaining momentum,” Morris said. “This step is not that great a step forward.”
Riots are not “protests”
Then again, when they’re ‘social justice protests‘…………..
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an anti-riot bill into law on Monday morning that’s aimed at protecting law-enforcement agencies and cracking down on protests that turn violent.
“I think it’s really remarkable if you look at the breadth of this particular piece of legislation,” DeSantis said during a news conference before signing the bill. “It is the strongest anti-rioting, pro-law-enforcement piece of legislation in the country. There’s just nothing even close.”
Florida’s Senate passed the bill last week 23-17, with only one Republican voting in opposition alongside Democrats.
The law, which was designated HB 1, includes a number of measures that crack down on protests in Florida.
It defines a “riot” as a public disturbance involving three or more people “acting with the common intent to assist each other in violent and disorderly conduct” that results in injury to another person, damage to property, or danger of injury or damage.
The law grants civil immunity to people who drive into protesters who are blocking a road, prevents people accused of rioting from bailing out of jail until after their first court appearance, and increases penalties for assaulting law-enforcement officers while engaging in a “riot.”
It also penalizes local governments that interfere with efforts to stop a riot and allows law-enforcement agencies that face funding reductions to file objections.
In a statement to NBC News last week, DeSantis said the legislation “strikes the appropriate balance of safeguarding every Floridian’s constitutional right to peacefully assemble, while ensuring that those who hide behind peaceful protest to cause violence in our communities will be punished.”
But critics say the legislation, and similar bills in several other states, are part of crackdown efforts after a summer of social-justice protests nationwide, according to Pensacola News Journal.
That $15 an hour minimum wage?
China’s turn to visit “the graveyard of empires”?
China may send peacekeeping force to Afghanistan after US troops leave, observers say
Beijing may consider sending a peacekeeping force to Afghanistan if the security situation in the South Asian country poses a threat to the neighbouring Chinese province of Xinjiang after American troops pull out, analysts said.
US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he would withdraw all remaining US troops – about 2,500 – from Afghanistan by September 11, the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attack in New York.
The withdrawal may pose a threat to Afghanistan’s security and stability, which could spill over into Xinjiang and disrupt China’s counterterrorism efforts.
In 2018, China trained Afghan troops and helped set up a mountain brigade. The training took place in China and the aim of the brigade was to counter possible attacks by al-Qaeda and Islamic State.
“The security forces of the Afghan government are not capable of ensuring Afghan security,” said Sun Qi, an international relations specialist at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
“The situation in Afghanistan might go further into chaos in the future. Cross-border crime, drug trafficking and smuggling of firearms may proliferate,” he said. Continue reading “”
Biden’s Anti-gun Lies are Too Much Even for Legacy Press Fact Checkers
U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- With President Joe Biden securely in office and the 2024 presidential election 43 months away, the mainstream press has determined it an acceptable time to expose the frequent fibber’s most flagrant falsehoods. This week saw a plethora of so-called “fact-checkers” take issue with the blatantly false statements Biden made while announcing his “initial actions” on gun control on April 8.
In touting H.R. 8, which would criminalize the private transfer of firearms, Biden stated,
These bills, one, require background checks for anyone purchasing a gun at a gun show or an online sale.
Most people don’t know: If you walk into a store and you buy a gun, you have a background check. But you go to a gun show, you can buy whatever you want, and no background check.
This decades-old gun show talking point is a lie.
There is no “gun show loophole” or “online sales loophole.” Federal law requires all firearm dealers to be licensed and to initiate a National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) check before transferring a firearm to a non-dealer, regardless of where the transfer takes place. Further, those “dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit” are required to be licensed as firearms dealers. Dealing in firearms without a license is punishable by up to 5 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.
Annnnnnd, and other Hammer Slammer
Suspect armed with hammer shot by homeowner in Lucerne Valley
LUCERNE VALLEY, Calif. (VVNG.com) — A 27-year-old suspect armed with a hammer was shot by a homeowner after forcing entry into her home.
It happened on April 16, 2021, at about 9:14 am. in the 36700 block of Foothill Road in Lucerne Valley.
The victim reported the suspect later identified as Robert Garcia forced his way into her residence through a back door.
According to sheriff’s officials, “the suspect entered the residence wielding a hammer and threatened to kill the female victim.”
Fearing for her life, the female victim shot the would-be intruder. Officials said Garcia walked away from the residence and was located lying on the side of Foothill Road.
Garcia was airlifted to a trauma center, however, an update on his condition was not available at the time of this release. Officials said the female victim was not injured.
Bringing a hammer to a gunfight?
PEARLAND, Texas – Police said a person wielding a hammer forced his way into the back of a home in Pearland Saturday night and attacked two people inside.
The home invasion happened in the 2200 block of North Houston Avenue near East Plum Street at 10:35 p.m.
Police say during the hammer attack the homeowner managed to grab his gun and shoot the intruder multiple times.
Three people are in the hospital and their condition is unknown as of this writing.
