Too late

Over at the website Jews For The Preservation of Firearm Ownership Rob Morse has a piece entitled Yes, You Need A Gun During The Virus Scare...And Afterwards that explains that if you don't already have a gun, holster, ammunition, and some training, it may be too late for you.

Sorry.  

The revolving door of injustice spun pretty fast after that. Last week, some cities let convicted thugs out of jail because of a flu virus. States closed gun shops and promise to arrest you if you leave your home. Police in some cities refuse to respond to theft in progress due to risk from public contact. Yes, you need a gun.. and a lot more.

These recent headlines highlight an obvious fact. These events let us see that we are on our own. If we’re attacked, the police arrive after we’ve gotten to safety, after we’ve made the call to 911, and if law enforcement has personnel available to help us. It is up to us to defend ourselves and those we love until the police arrive.

That realization changed last week, but only by a matter of degree. Now we’re in the middle of a virus scare and police may or may not respond to our calls. Today, law enforcement in many cities are refusing to come to the scene of the crime if the criminal threat is gone. As you’d expect, crime increases when criminals are not pursued, arrested, jailed, charged, and prosecuted.

Today, you are at a greater risk, but you were never completely safe. Many people wanted to believe that they’d be safer if they were unarmed. Our experience with armed citizens says otherwise, and so do the recent headlines. Many people who were only vaguely aware of self-defense now see the need for a personal firearm. I’m sorry, but for many of you it is too late to become armed defenders.

I hate to say it, but you were warned.

Culture Of Death On The Left

I continue to be skeptical that the Kung Flu is as dangerous as the media continually hawks it to be.  For one thing, the media's continuing focus on the Wuhan Flu is just too convenient for the Leftists.  Now, I don't totally discount that it may well be as described.  After all, even a stopped clock is correct twice a day.  Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then.  Even...well...you get the idea.  But the odds are that the current suffering of the American people is just one more in a long line of trumped up panics run by Leftists and the propaganda wing of the Democrat party.

Jeffery T. Brown has a powerful story at the American Thinker today entitled Death As A Political Tool. Brown takes us back to the abortion scandal in this country that results in between 800,000 and 1,000,000 deaths per year of innocent babies. The fact that the Left fights tooth and nail to keep abortion on demand legal in the United States, and accepts no limits on it whatsoever says much about who these people are.  By comparison, estimates of the number of people killed by COVID 19 are 80,000 people, who survived being killed by their own mothers.

But Leftists and their policies have killed more people than anything else since its founding during the French revolution. Indeed, Leftism seems to be a cult of death, or at least death to anyone but themselves.  And it continues in places like Venezuela, a formerly wealthy country brought low by socialist policies that have left bare shelves at grocery stores, the people scavenging dumpsters for anything remotely edible. But Brown is says it best:

If you've been paying attention for the last ten years or so in particular, you may have noticed in how many ways political leftists in this country love death. Not their own, but the deaths of otherwise anonymous American citizens whom they've never met, care nothing about, and clearly consider deserving of sacrifice for their policy objectives. These progressives, globalists, socialists, or any other synonym you wish to append to the ghouls who harvest souls for their own advancement think nothing of choosing who lives and who dies. They do it all the time, and that's just to seize power they don't have yet. Imagine what our country will look like if or when they are fully in control, as they thought they'd be in 2016 and hope to be again soon.

This week, we've been treated to the spectacle of Democrats in Congress using a national health catastrophe that is killing people daily, and bankrupting those who live, to extort political agenda items from the country while it suffers exponentially by the day. We've seen the Democrat governor of Nevada issue an executive order banning the use of a drug that is shown to cure people with COVID-19, apparently on the basis that President Trump identified it as a means of stopping the virus in its tracks, to the benefit of the country and its economy. They would rather exact petty victories and hide cures than defeat the illness and save American lives because the more people who die, the more they can blame Trump in November for a crisis he has responded to with every ounce of energy and determination. The more people suffer economically, the worse for Trump and the better for them.

Of course, this is a gun blog, right? So one should mention that one of the things all Leftists can agree on is that nobody but them should have a gun. Wasn't it Mao who said that power grows out of the barrel of a gun? People on the right are constantly accused of having blood on their hands because of support for the Second Amendment. Never mind that the problem is not guns per se, but those that misuse them. Oh, and the Left will never give up their weapons, no matter what the law may say. They don't feel a need to obey inconvenient laws:

Maybe you've noticed that not only do leftists love for children to be in schools deemed "gun-free zones," but they fight like hell to make sure that no one in those schools can prevent the deaths that become so useful to the advancement of their agenda. We are then offered the spectacle of the anti–Second Amendment politicians briefly leaving the protective cocoon of their armed security detail to tell us how unacceptable it would be for teachers and school administrators to be able to kill a gunman whose primary inducement in his choice of location is that no one will shoot back for a good, long time. Those aren't their children or grandchildren we're mourning. Those are expendable children. Perhaps it's sad, theoretically, that their lives were snuffed out by a triggered lunatic protected by laws passed by liberals that prevented the shooter's pre-emptive commitment to an institution, whether psychological or criminal, but their families have the comfort of knowing that their children died to eradicate the Second Amendment. They were offered up so that we can eventually be a nation of unarmed, subservient workers ruled by the politicians who willingly sacrificed those children so they can be the ones on top when the dust settles, sans bullet holes.

Please go read the whole article and remember that the current panic has nothing to do with the deaths that may result from the Chinese flu. The current panic is designed to damage President Trump. For perspective, the new estimate of the ultimate number of COVID 19 deaths in the US is around 80,000.  By comparison, the 2016 -2017 flu season killed 80,000.  Nobody was panicking then.

Joe Biden At His Elitist Best

Roger Katz has a piece at Ammoland entitled Biden The Half Wit Dares To Lecture The Public On The 2nd Amendment:

Politicians, especially those on the Radical Left and new Progressive Left of the political spectrum, proceed along their merry way, seemingly having not a care in the world, either oblivious to the fact, or, perhaps, all too mindful of it, that the actions they take as legislators, compromising the citizenry's most sacred rights and liberties, diminishes them as Americans, undermines the Constitution, and creates a hell for the rest of us to live in. Yet, there is no compromise (in the sense of negotiation), on a fundamental, immutable, unalienable, natural right; nor can there be compromise. The word ‘compromise,’ here, denotes outright capitulation. That, of course, is what the Democrats want, and the Detroit autoworker, Jerry Wayne, was doing the public a favor in bringing to light the irrationality of Biden’s remarks on the Second Amendment. Biden obviously wasn’t able to respond effectively to the irrationality of his own position. How could he? His position is self-contradictory.

...snip...

Sincerity was never Biden’s long suit; nor is controlling his anger. Biden’s obvious disinclination to engage the public, despite his efforts to demonstrate the contrary, comes across plainly and painfully. His rancor and deceit, irascibility and dissembling, along with an inability or lack of desire to even try to control his temper should not be lost on anyone.

With his daily Wuhan virus updates, one suspect Cuomo may be auditioning for the presidency, because heaven knows, even the reduced field is just awful. But I understand from someone who knew him at HUD that Cuomo is no better. I start to believe that William F. Buckley, Jr. had the right idea:  he'd rather be governed by someone picked at random from the Boston phone book.  (Note for those too young to remember what a phone book was, it was a printed database of all the people and businesses in the area with their addresses and telephone numbers.)

Wake, North Carolina Sheriff Refuses To Process Pistol Permits

From Tom Knighton over at Bearing Arms comes NC Sheriff Suspends Pistol Permits, Faces Immediate Backlash. Knighton is, of course, talking about our own Sheriff Baker of Wake County. Of course Baker is a Democrat, and naturally he is anti gun. Baker is the one who tried to shut down the only public range in Wake County earlier.

The current issue is the Wuhan Flu, but it could be any manufactured panic.  North Carolina has a Jim Crow law on the books that requires an individual to obtain a Pistol Permit in order to buy a handgun.  The Pistol Permit requires a person's fingerprints and a background check.  It is an obsolete law that should have been struck down years ago.  But it is a revenue stream, so many Sheriffs are loathe to get rid of it.

Indeed, it can be argued that by setting up a permit system, the NC State government has turned a right into a privilege  Time indeed to get rid of it.

If you are in NC, please call and inundate the Sheriff's office with pushback.

Update:  Grass Roots North Carolina, along with Second Amendment Foundation and the Firearms Policy Coalition are suing Sheriff Baker.  The press release is here. You can read it at the link. Thank you Paul Valone, President of GRNC.

Killing The Victim To Stop The Disease

I continue to believe that the current measures being taken by our "leaders" are worse than the disease we are trying to fight. And I believe it is also true that long after we have supposedly "defeated" COVID 19, it will still be with us, endemic as is SARS and the seasonal flu.

Martin Thau has an excellent piece at the American Thinker today entitled COVID 19 Probably Won't Destroy Society, But The Government's Reaction Might that encapsulates the problem very well. He starts by reminding us of the many many panics that have been whipped up by the media, only to be proven false.

The Washington Post recently touted "an alarming new scientific model" that warns that treating COVID-19 like a somewhat more severe strain of flu won't cut it. The model predicts over a million U.S fatalities unless we shut down all non-essential mingling until a vaccine is developed, "which could take 12 to 18 months at best." Pretty bleak stuff. In fact, that's about the bleakest take on COVID-19 you'll find. Let's run with it.

...snip...

We'll also entirely ignore the media's generally appalling track record concerning "expert" projections of hypothetical disasters. In fact, we'll ignore their altogether abysmal record of spreading misinformation when it matters most. Pretend they never created a completely unjustified panic over the prospect of massive Y2K technology failures. Nor remember they've been serially predicting we have only ten years 'til the Earth becomes uninhabitable from environmental damage for at least the last 50.

And he goes on like this for paragraph after paragraph.  Panic after panic, raised to the highest level of urgency not because these panics were real, but because they serve an agenda.  Remember peak oil?  The world was running out, until we discovered that the U.S. alone had enough oil to keep us running for perhaps 200 or more years.

Then he points out that what our "leaders" have prescribed is utter madness. 

We're now in a position to observe a remarkable fact. The restrictions and spur-of-the-moment peremptory government abridgment of our most basic rights to which we've acquiesced are still completely unjustified. The idea that we're considering extending them indicates that we've completely lost our collective mind.

...snip...

Even the worst-case scenarios presented by our dishonest, fear-mongering media don't present some kind of unique catastrophe the likes of which no human society has ever faced and for which it's impossible to predict the long-term damage or even if we'll ever recover.

The same, however, can't be said for the insane idea of an extended period of time living under draconian government-enforced social and economic sanctions. Virtually every single brick-and-mortar business in America could wind up out of business, and unheard-of levels of unemployment are guaranteed.

Thau also points out, as did I, that so called "social distancing" while being of dubious effectiveness against the virus, will no doubt increase depression and suicide. And for those who are suffering from the virus itself, they will be forced to go it alone. But man is a social creature. He needs companionship, and he needs to have contact with others. And while technology can help to keep us in contact, there is no substitute for face to face meeting with others. Even an introverted individual needs some contact with others. It is our nature as humans.

Further, I question whether the government, at any level, has the right or authority to order us to stay at home, or to enforce such orders.  We are too meekly submitting to this tyranny, and we too readily accept that it is good for us.  As I said before, those of us who are at most risk need to protect ourselves as we see fit.  But young people and those with families and mortages should not have to participate.  Dr. Nicole Saphier, MD, let the cat out of the bag yesterday when she confirmed that by next year COVID 19 will be part of the flu season in the U.S.

Go read the whole article, and several others on American Thinker Update: Please also read Enough: The COVID-19 Panic Is Insane And Destroying Our Way Of Life:

No, this rage column is for you sane people who think this entire “crisis” is stupid and have from the start. You are not alone. It’s one thing to practice basic hygiene which we all should anyway. It’s another thing to shut down the world. What gives me faith is having met so many of you who also see the problem with this pandemic. The sane — those who don’t fall in line with the herd — are, as it turns out, some of the best people I’ve met. Jovial, kind, fun and independent. Rock on, my rebels, I raise my toilet paper in your honor.

Yes, this entire “crisis” is stupid. You are not the only one who thinks so. You are not a terrible person for feeling sad or angry to see your life disintegrating before you while virtue signaling plebes hop on social media to say they’re fine with sacrificing in order to flatten the curve.

Getting a perspective on the Coronapanic

I may sound perhaps insensitive to the suffering that other may be going through. I am not, however. I just got a call from our company "human resource" department that everyone is furloughed until further notice. That means at least two weeks. Meanwhile, it has been rainy here for days on end, so getting outside to do some yard work at least has been iffy. So, put me in the same boat as everyone else.

But, in times like these, it is well to remember that Jesus walks beside us through all the times of both joy and suffering. At The Federalist Michael Salemink has a piece entitled 10 Positive Ways To Celebrate Life In The Shadow Of Coronavirus. Please read through his ten ways and meditate on each. It is easy to get wrapped around the axle over small things, and forget others. You still can reach out to others even if you are confined.

At our church we are making changes to our services, such as having the ushers place bulletins on a stand and pointing them out, rather than handing one to each person, but we have not cut out services.  I agree that cutting services is a bridge to far, and a gift to Satan and the Left.  Don't go there.

If you don't now, maybe it's a good time to start each morning with Martin Luther's morning prayer:

I thank you my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ Your dear Son,that you have kept me this night from all harm and danger; and that you would keep me this day also from sin and every evil, my doings and life may please You. For into your hands I commend myself, my body and soul and all things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me. Amen

Stay safe, gentle reader.

States and communities getting push back from citizens on gun store shut downs

Anti-gun politicians have used the COVID 19 pandemic as an excuse to shut down gun stores as nonessential.  Andrea Widburg has the story at the American Thinker entitled States and local communities are using coronavirus to shut down gun stores. I would note though that a number of governors and sheriffs have had their ears pinned back since that story was written. For instance, Los Angeles County Sheriff

Alex Villanueva reversed course early Wednesday morning and now says his office is suspending attempts to force firearm retailers to lock their doors.

Villaneuva announced the move on social media, saying it will be up to Gov. Gavin Newsom to determine what is, and isn’t, an essential business.

And Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf has been slapped by the Supreme Court and forced to back track on his order to close gun stores. Widburg notes that:

For this reason, the first ten amendments to the Constitution do not define government power; they limit it. And more importantly, they limit it, not by having the government graciously extend a few privileges to America’s citizens, privileges that the government can as easily revoke, but instead by stating rights that individuals automatically possess without regard to the government’s powers.

The second of these amendments – one of only two amendments dedicated exclusively to a single principle – refers to every citizen’s inherent (not government-granted, but inherent) right to possess arms:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

If the Second Amendment were written in modern English, the Founders might have phrased it this way:

The only way citizens can defend themselves against a tyrannical government is to create their own army (which, obviously, is separate from the government’s army). The people, therefore, have an overarching and innate right to have guns, and the government may not interfere with that right.

Our right to arms for defense of our selves and our families is never more important than at a time when things can rapidly turn ugly. Widburg correctly notes that the right to arms is an inherent right, not a government grant, and that the right may not be revoked at the stroke of a pen. The anti-federalists were right to insist on putting this into the Constitution as a price for their acquiescence to it, because it makes it much easier to defend.