Fire Acting Director Regina Lombardo for conspiring against a civil right.

 https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-acting-director-regina-lombardo-conspiring-against-civil-right

Acting Director Regina Lombardo accepted contact from candidate Joe Biden, or representatives of Biden, and has signalled her intention to further violate the civil right of U.S. citizens and other legal residents of the U.S. that is expressly protected by the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and is a natural right.

Specifically, Lombardo intends to further regulate or make illegal by fiat pistol braces and 80% lowers.

It is our belief that: (1) Lombardo is practicing creeping incrementalism, (2) does not support the 2nd Amendment, and (2) is violating her oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

We Outsourced The Fight

According to Michael Bane, gun-rights advocates are failing on two fronts, and a new one has opened up:

1. "The willingness to outsource the fight."

2. "Inability to consolidate victory."

3. "We are now in a Culture War" and that makes it a "zero-sum game."

Whom did we outsource the fight to? Bane said it was pretty much left up to Gun Culture 2.0, and they did what the rest of us did (Gun Culture 1.0) - which was not much. But I think the most important that we ALL did was act like "membership" WAS the fight. We joined the NRA. We followed Facebook gun pages. We liked posts and loved tweets. We enjoyed the echo chamber. 

We do make small victories. Bane contends that we elected Trump, but what have we gotten for it? And he said that the same thing went for Bush, Jr. We do not hold our elected officials to task and account, and Republicans in Congress are demonstrating that in spades. We rest on shaky laurels; we do not consolidate victories - judicial, legislative, elected, and appointed.

And now with the liberal MSM and politicians pandering to youth, Bane finally contends that we are in a Culture War in which the anti-private-gun faction wants us dead. They want to rip private guns from American culture, and since they are so determined to pursue this Culture War, then this is a zero-sum game. Either we win, or they win.

Well, I believe that we will never lose. We may have setbacks - like most of the 20th century, but gun rights are on an upswing with concealed carry and Constitutional carry, and the judiciary slowly recognizing the natural, individual right to arms.

So what have I done? I have argued with Facebook friends and foes - and edjumacated coworkers, but did I do anything political?

Well, in this modern social-media age, I did offer kudos to my U.S. Rep, when he posted his NRA rating on Facebook - and I defended him and encouraged him and he responded positively. But I haven't written a letter to a pol in a couple years, and I've never done anything else.

 So what to do? I listened to the recent Society and the State podcast episode "How To Lobby In Your Pajamas." Connor Boyack's main strategy is, if I can be so bold to paraphrase: Treat politicians as people. Offer them a free lunch. Honor their accomplishments (of course, the ones that went our way). Even if they are not NRA "A+" rated, we still need to make them feel appreciated. Give kudos for non-gun issues. Make your contact with them a positive experience, and of course, contact them about the issues you care about.

What else, I don't know. But in the meantime, I need to research what my Congress people have been doing - and contact them.

Oh, yeah. Apparently, state-level gun rights organizations can be really effective and need more attention.

You might be saying: "What's this we crap?" If you have been active in lobbying politicians and defending our rights, then I say: "Thank you."

NRA and Bump Stocks

Is the NRA ideologically flexible?

I think it is . It appears that the NRA is playing practical politics by throwing the left a bone: Maybe, the NRA will support additional federal regulation of bump stocks. 

Wayne LaPierre's comeback to the "rumor" that the NRA would support banning bump stocks was like drunk-monkey kung fu. To paraphrase LaPierre, (1) bump stocks were not around 10 years agO, and (2) they make semiautos fullautos or something. The NRA needs to get its story straight and start every yarn it spins with:

     "shall not infringe"

Florida Sheriffs to Start Monitoring and Arresting State Troopers for 4th Amend Violations

Not really, but they should.

FLORIDA -- Florida Highway Patrol has announced it will be conducting daytime vehicle checkpoints, where they will demand that drivers present their papers, and allow the police to poke around and inspect their vehicles. No warrants or probable cause are necessary in the new America.

- Police State USA: Land of the Checkpoints

Time for Florida sheriffs to start monitoring and arresting state troopers that violate the Fourth Amendment, especially since the Florida Sheriffs Association issued a "Support of the Second Amendment" proclamation:

http://cspoa.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Second-Amendment-Proclamation.pdf

The Florida State Highway Patrol is taking advantage of the lack of mandated, state-controlled vehicle inspections. I think a notarized affidavit signed by a certified mechanic should be your cop-out-of-car shield. LOL.

Thanks to Statism Is Slavery for sharing this news on Facebook.

The Judge Distilled The Truth

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=323593157742678&set=a.323593137742680.59978.316880428413951&type=1&relevant_count=1&ref=nf
Well, The Libertarian, a UK libertarian blog, posted on its Facebook page that "Such sentiment sounds hyperbolic in stable countries in the west, but all citizens must be forever vigilant."

I was waiting for someone to object the the Judge's words, because I have seen this quote many times over the last few months. But  The Libertarian was not offering a condemnation. But neither were Judge Napolitano's words hyperbole. They are a distillation of the truth. Everyone, everywhere has the right to oppose their government, and if need be by force, if the government oversteps its written and natural bounds. Government does not have a monopoly of force; that is a myth.

"The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."

- Thomas Jefferson

I do think that Judge Napolitano's words are dangerous and are an affront to a government that disbelieves them, but then the government is dangerous.

The Founders Couldn't Envision ARs ("assault weapons") Fallacy

The fallacy goes something like this: There were no semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines when the founding fathers were alive, and they did not write the 2nd Amendment to allow them. Therefore, civilians should only be guaranteed the right to own flint-lock, muzzleloading rifles.

So the police, military, and federal-agency statute enforcers will also have muzzleloaders? Well, that would be nice, but there was no intent in the 2nd amendment to limit technology to the people, and they were aware of and benefited from a game-changing technology in their time. The American civilian militia members were using privately-owned rifled weapons to provide accurate fire against the British. The rifle did not entirely replace the smoothbore, because the rifle took much more time to reload, but it did allow small numbers of Rebels to effectively harass soldiers on the move and incapacitate commanders in pitched battles.

Another thing, the 2nd amendment addresses arms. It doesn't say sporting arms or self-defense arms. It means weapons of war, including cannons and tanks (which are still legal by statute to own, not just natural law).

If SWAT has fully-auto arms when they're kicking in doors, or the USA military is carrying them around in our neck of the woods, then so should we. Parity to prevent tyranny.

Firearms: Sporting and Self-Defense Purposes

I could claim a myriad of sporting and self-defense purposes for a semi-automatic, combat-like rifle. I could say something like:

I enjoy preparing for the coming economic collapse.

I like playing Rambo on the weekends.

The Mayan calendar was wrong, but I know it's coming.

I enjoy three gun.

I've decided such a weapon is my best form of self defense.

But I don't need any of those justifications for owning and possessing my property. The right to keep and bear arms is a natural right enumerated in the 2nd Amendment. The natural right is not for some arms; it is for all arms.

The founders also wanted to make sure of one additional thing: that the common person would be an integral part of the defense of ones state, of ones military, as a citizen, as a private individual, with ones privately owned arms. A citizen needs an effective weapon that brings parity* with common military arms.


Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show Shoots Self In Foot
I'm glad to see that the major sponsors and vendor after vendor are abandoning the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show, because they fail to see that shunning the black rifle or "tactical" weapons abandons the 2nd Amendment for a watered-down, "legitimate"-sporting-purpose privilege.

In the promoter's defense, Reed Exhibitions's markets the show as a "unique celebration of authentic hunting and fishing traditions." But the "modern sporting rifle" - I really hate that term, by the way - the modern sporting rifle has made major inroads into hunting and self-defense uses. Almost every maker of ARs makes a varmint version. Manufacturers of ARs and ammunition have been working for several years to develop systems that are effective for larger game. Some are not as scary looking, because they ironically have fright-disrupting camouflage. For example, there is the Remington R-25 in military-developed 7.62x51mm NATO.

http://remington.com/en/products/firearms/centerfire/model-r-25/model-r-25-rifle.aspx

And not to put too fine a point on the legitimacy of using military-style arms for sporting stuff - because we don't need to care - but the deadly-for-humans Springfield 1903 in military-developed .30 '06 bagged plenty of game, whether it was "sporterized" or not.

And not to belabor the point, but hunters putting ARs in the field "normalizes" the use of ARs. And once again, we don't need to care, but "normalizing" is one part public relations and one part "a right not exercised is lost" foil.

Michael Bane, putting it pretty well:

WE ARE UNITED!
I've read today about how hunters and shooters have "different needs," and how the NRA membership is "separated" from the NRA executive. Let me use a simple, easily understood word here:
BULL! 

*A couple firearms Acts put us at a disadvantage, illegitimately.

"Elementary" Philosophers - Private Arms

Suggested by Stephen P. Halbrook PhD in "That Every Man Be Armed:"

Pro Private Arms:
Aristotle:
"Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of arms." (quoted on Quotes on the Rights to Bear Arms by Eric S. Raymond) Cicero:
"I refer to the law which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right."(quoted in "The Sword & The Tome" by David Kopel) Algernon Sidney:
"Nay, all laws must fall, human societies that subsist by them must be dissolved, and all innocent persons be exposed to the violence of most wicked, if men might not justly defend themselves against injustice by their own natural right, when the ways prescribed by public authority cannot be taken." (quoted in "The Scottish and English Religious Roots of the American Right to Arms" by David Kopel) Also:
John Locke
Machiavelli

Anti Private Arms:
Plato
Caesar
Robert Filmer
Also:
Jean Bodin
Thomas Hobbes