Stop Focusing on the Tools

 Here's another piece from Bearing Arms by Tom Knighton hammering home the fact that universal background checks will do nothing to stop criminals, nor for that matter to help stop crime. So, why do they want them so badly? Skip to the end to find out.

The article at Bearing Arms is entitled Texas Man Arrested for Stealing Guns From Homowner Who Hired Him.

I can't say that I don't understand stealing because I suppose there are situations where I can. If you're starving--literally starving, not just hungry--and you steal food, I won't approve but I'd get it.

Most people never reach that level of desperation, though.

Yet even if you are, one would imagine that the average person might think stealing from someone they're working for is a bad idea. However, most crooks aren't that bright.

Or, at least, this one wasn't.

"The Atascosa County Sheriff's Office apprehended David Alviso III, a Jourdanton resident, after finding 13 stolen guns, six vehicle titles and a computer that belonged to the homeowner, according to an Atascosa County Sheriff's Office Facebook post."

Deputies Tim Challes and Stephen Cook arrived at the Blackhill Community residence, which is roughly eight miles east of Pleasanton, after getting a call about a theft. When the two deputies got to the property the homeowner and Alviso were both at the home. The homeowner accused Alviso of stealing from him after watching surveillance footage, according to the release. Alviso had reportedly been hired to do work on the home.

The deputies followed footprints from the house into the woods where they found a bag with the stolen goods.

Yeah, this guy wasn't in serious contention to join Ocean's Eleven by any stretch of the imagination.

Yet think about what all it would have taken for him to get away with it. Without surveillance footage, it's unlikely Alviso would have been fingered so early. It's even possible that the homeowner wouldn't have known about the theft for some time. By then, the footprints might have been gone from wind, rain, or someone covering their tracks. Literally.

And this, boys and girls, is how criminals get guns.

Given that this is fundamentally true, that criminals get guns mostly by either stealing them, or buying from someone else who stole them, a universal background check will do nothing either to stop criminals from getting guns, or the help the police track down the perpetrators of crimes. So why does the Left so badly want universal background checks? Because they want to build a registry of who has what guns at any given time. Such a registry makes it easier to order the confiscation of weapons.

Given how slowly justice moves, they would hope to have either rounded up the guns, or put the refuseniks in jail, or just executed them before anyone could mount sufficient opposition. We have plenty of history from other countries to show this is true. National Review has a detailed report of How the Nazis Used Gun Control to first register, then disarm those suspected of being "politically unreliable" and Jews. Once defenseless, the Jews were exterminated to the tune of 6 million of them.

The Left has been attacking the American republic for now 170 years. Yes, the Left is the aggressor here, not the other way around.  The attack has been on all fronts and lately has accelerated. But they fear our guns, which may be the only thing keeping us from being overwhelmed. But in the end guns are just tools. Stop focusing on the tools and focus on the bad guys abusing the tools.

The Hypocrisy of Tech Giants

 Olivia Murray has a great post at the American Thinker today exploring the hypocrisy of the Tech Billionaires entitled Silicon Valley progressives buy up nuclear reactors to power their AI data center needs, after pushing us to subsist with wind and solar power.

When the rubber met the road and the progressive climate change warriors in Silicon Valley needed energy to power their AI and data centers, you might be surprised to learn they didn’t opt for the “renewable” energy technologies they’ve been forcing down our throats (wind turbines and solar panels), using the weight of big government, but instead went for…reliability and affordability.

Or maybe it’s not all that unexpected, considering these are the same people who fly from climate conference to climate conference in personal private jets and gorge themselves on Kobe beef while calling on us to limit ourselves to crickets and lab-grown “meat” mash.

...snip...

As we are all miserably aware, these three companies are radically left, both in their company mission and the personal ideology of their executives, and they use their weight to influence policy—they’re leading proponents of the progressive “climate change” narrative. While they’ve certainly “invested” a bit into the “zero-carbon” energy schemes, they abandoned their positions for personal gain when they needed reliability and affordability—the very reason we conservatives have insisted that nuclear energy is a great and clean option.

Does that mean we “unwashed masses” will be afforded the same opportunities? Or will we still be saddled inefficient and unaffordable?

I suspect the latter.

I do not resent that the tech billionaires make a lot of money by supplying people with products they like. That is capitalism. What I resent is that they then use the money they have made through capitalism to impoverish the rest of us and to force us to live on a subsistence level. I suspect that Murray believes similar. If nuclear is good enough for tech giants, it is good enough for the rest of us too.

A Pox on Both Their Houses

 Today is the first day of voting in North Carolina in the 2024 voting season.  Democrats of course are expected to set records for first day voting, if other states are any example.  For myself, I cannot wait for the voting season to be over.  This has been the nastiest, most lie filled election at all levels in my lifetime.  I am thoroughly disgusted with it.  Most of the lies, of course, come from the Democrats, though there are some from Republicans as well.  I will vote, of course, but a pox on both their houses. 

I am especially disgusted with the Democrat obsession with abortion.  Here in Raleigh, we get television ads for many district races as well as statewide races because WRAL covers a huge area.  We get ads for races from the coast to as far as the Greenborough area.  In every case, the Democrat candidate has touted their support for essentially unlimited abortion, while castigating their Republican opponent as taking away a woman's "right" to choose.

I have to ask, do these people who support abortion not hear themselves?  Do they not realize that a  "woman's right to choose abortion" is actually legalizing a woman's ability to murder her unborn child?  Do they not hear what they are saying, do not realize the horror of what they are proposing?  In ancient times, people threw their first born sons and daughters into the firey belly of Molock as a sacrifice to the anciet gods.  This is usually referred to as "passing through the fire."  But such language doesn't cover the horror of such behavior, as the child would scream as it burn up.  The LORD God punished Israel for that as well as other offences against Him.  And we are doing the same thing.

Democrats claim that their Republican opponents would disallow all abortions.  While that would be the ideal, just as divorce is allowed because of the hardness of our hearts, no states are going to absolutely oulaw all abortions.  There will be exceptions for rape, incest, and the health of the mother.  While some Republicans may talk about the ideal, the facts are that they will not be able to get the votes for it.  So, in the end, the Democrats are just trying to scare their voters.  Is that what we want as voters, or do we want them to represent us?

Another big lie is that the Republicans, particularly Trump, will implement the horrible, no good, abominable Project 2025.  This has been thoroughly debunked, and I don't see many candidates advertising about it, but some outside groups do.  First of all, Project 2025 is a production of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.  I don't think any conservative, however, agrees with all of the wish list contained in the 920 page document.  Again, even if Trump were attempting to put some of these proposals, he wouldn't have the votes in Congress.  Let us remember that the use of executive orders can not be used to implement laws, nor can executive agencies interpret the law to favor administrative priorities.

I hope future elections can focus more on the issues and less on tearing each other down.

Anti-Gunners Surprised Criminals Break Laws

 One has to wonder what kind of people believe that by making a law, they will stop criminals from being...well, you know...criminals.  It reminds me of those public service ads that used to show up on the television when I was young telling people lock their cars because they didn't want a good boy to go bad.  But of course, a good boy wouldn't be tempted to steal a car even if the keys were in it.

Yet, it seems that The Trace wants us to believe that criminality is because some states have something like Constitutional laws. The report comes from Townhall.com by Tom Knighton entitled Anti=Gun Organization Shocked To Learn That Criminals Break Laws

Being a criminal isn't a very difficult field to get into. You just have to break the law.

Sure, being good at being a criminal is a different matter--most suck at it, really--but it doesn't take a whole lot to be a criminal. Yet despite this simple tautology, some people are absolutely shocked to learn that criminals don't obey the law. They even write about it like it's news.

The latest example of this phenomenon is from the anti-gun "journalist" organization The Trace.

Please go and read the article at The Trace to find out the details. To make a long story a bit shorter, one Dylan Russell bought a number of guns over a two year period, which he was allowed to do because he had no convictions. Unfortunately, Russell wasn't entirely truthful, as he was using heroin at the time. Indeed, Russell bought the guns and them traded them for heroin. So he broke several laws as you may not purchase a gun while using illgal drugs, and you certainly may not buy a gun for another party.

In January 2024, Russell was charged in U.S. District Court in Burlington for his role as a straw purchaser in what prosecutors allege was a drugs-for-guns operation orchestrated by gang members based in cities including Springfield, Massachusetts, and Hartford, Connecticut. Russell, who has pleaded guilty in the case and is set to be sentenced in November, bought guns on behalf of drug traffickers; he got drugs from them in return.

Here's the question though, exactly what law would have prevented Russell from committing these crimes while still allowing honest citizens to purchase guns for self defense and other legal purposes? Perhaps making the use of illegal drugs more illegaler?

So what laws would have stopped Russell that wouldn't have infringed on the rights of ordinary, law-abiding citizens?

Of course, the answer is that there are no such laws. They don't care about you and me and our ability to exercise our right to keep and bear arms. People like Russell aren't even the problem for them. The problem is us. We don't want to give up our guns, so they try to use the people like Russell to justify their need for more and more laws, none of which would do a blasted thing to stop people putting guns in criminal hands.

Mob of Street Thugs Blocks the Freeway

 At Ammoland John Farnum warns us that When Stalled By A Violent Riot, Stationary Vehicles Are Death Traps. Farnum suggests crossing the median if necessary to turn around and get out of there. As long as you are moving, you have a chance. We can expect more of these as the election draws near and after the election. Keep your powder dry but stay armed.

Happy Columbus Day

 Happy Columbus day.

This is what indiginous people were doing before the Europeans arrived.  I would think all would be greatful.

Someone had to say it:

Hat tip to Theo Sparks.

Judge Tears Out Another Brick in the Wall That Is Election Fraud

 In order to be believed by all parties, elections must be honest.  But the Left and some on the Right have fought tooth and nail to keep the tactics that make our elections insecure and cause the losing side to cry foul.  Too many courts have failed in their duty to acknowledge the evidence of voter fraud brought to them.  Building election integrity has thus been slow, and I doubt that we can restore it in time for a vote to make a difference.  While the 2024 election is not likely to be our last, it is probably the last one before the Communists take over completely.  Still, miracles do happen.

Today at the American Thinker Jerome R. Corsi has an article explaining that one of the ways elections can be stolen has been cut off: How a Federal District Court Judge Weaponized Secret Algorithms to Stop Election Fraud Hidden in State Voter Rolls. Actually, while Corsi speaks of databases themselves, the actual problem is not the database per se, but the software used to manipulate the database.

On September 27, 2024, Federal District Court Judge Michael T. Liburdi rendered a decision in American Encore v. Adrian Fontes that weaponized algorithms surreptitiously embedded in various state boards of elections official voter registration database, turning them into a tool to block elections that bear the modus operandi of mail-in ballot election fraud from being certified.

In his decision, Judge Liburdi referenced a provision in the Elections Procedures Manual (EPM) that Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, had issued. That provision required the Secretary of State to certify an election by excluding the votes of any county that refused to certify an election. Justice Liburdi quoted the EPM language that became known in Arizona as the “Canvass Provision.” The quoted EPM language, including the parenthetical remark included in the original EPM document, reads as follows:

"If the official canvass of any county has not been received by this deadline, the Secretary of State may proceed with the state canvass without including the votes of the missing county (i.e., the Secretary of State is not permitted to use an unofficial vote count in lieu of the county’s official canvass)."

Judge Liburdi characterized the rule as “probably unprecedented in the history of the United States” because it “gives the Secretary of State nearly carte blanche authority to disenfranchise the ballots of potentially millions of Americans.”

Judge Liburdi’s ruling is a bulwark against secret algorithms in the state voter databases that create a pool of hidden “non-existent voters.” Beyond just creating “non-existent voters,” the cryptographic algorithms assign legitimate state voter IDs to the “non-existent voters.” This last step enables the criminal perpetrators to vote these “non-existent voters” as apparently “legal” mail-in votes in what could be sufficient quantities to steal otherwise losing elections.

To get a better feel for exactly how these secret algorithms are used to create non-existent voters that nonetheless appear as legitimate voters, I suggest you go to God's Five Stones, a website created by Corsi to report the group's findings.

The Democrat (read Socialist and Communists) have several built in advantages in any election. One is a belief that government is their highest priority, therefore they have a strong get-out-the-vote organization everywhere. But their real advantage is their belief in "by any means necessary." Therefore there is little to no qualms about lying, cheating and other skullduggery to win an election. The only way to discourage such actions is to provide sufficient consequences to discourage them. But if the one encouraging such shenanagans is also the one who benefits from them and who enforces laws against them, consequences mean little. That is why it is important to have to competing parties always watching the other.