VA gun grab fight preparing to become nasty

 Virginia, a commonwealth that was fairly free on concealed carry and other firearms issues is facing suddenly becoming California.  According to the Firearms Policy Coalition, Virginia has about to heat up. A donation to the Virginia Citizens Defense League will be appreciated.

Stirring the Pot

 Shall we stir the pot a little?  You all have probably read most of the .45 Auto vs 9mm Parabellum articles, shouting matches and so forth. I have tried to stay out of these debates because I look at them as follows: each person must evaluate their own risks and then decide what to do about it.  My wife carries a .380 Auto, while my daughter carries a .32 Auto.  But I know that most don't carry anything at all. And most die of accident or disease or old age, not gunshot wounds.

So, it was interesting that the American Rifleman had a piece in it today by Bryce M. Towsley entitled The Infinite Argument: 9mm vs. .45 ACP. I recommend that gentle readers take the time to read it, because unlike a lot of the debate, this one is fairly sober.

If you watch TV shows, the good guys always place either one or two rounds such that they stop the bad guy from continuing his attack. But real life is far different. You want your attacker to bleed a little faster to stop his attack, and the .45 Auto has a proven track record of stopping an attack when paired with a M1911 style pistol. The reason the .45 pairs well with the m1911 is because the M1911 is a heavy steel pistol which absorbs much of the recoil.

The pistol and its cartridge resulted from a U.S. Army request for a new pistol:

This is a battle that has been fought before and probably will be again. For example, after the gruesome failures during the Moro Rebellion in the Philippines graphically illustrated the folly of using a smaller cartridge, the Army paid attention. That lead to the Thompson-LaGarde Tests, which proved what most of our salted Soldiers already knew: the Army made a mistake abandoning the .45 Colt in favor of the .38 Long Colt, a cartridge equivalent in power to the .380 ACP.

With that newfangled smokeless powder having been recently invented, ammunition makers were able to more or less duplicate the proven performance of the old .45 Colt in the newer, shorter .45 ACP. They put the cartridge in a semi-automatic handgun, the M1911, which went on to make its bones winning two world wars and in countless lesser conflicts. Yeah, I know. “OK, boomer.”

Well, yes, I am a "boomer, and an old fart one at that. And I shoot and carry an M1911 style pistol. Yes it's a relatively heavy pistol, but with a proper belt and holster it disappears under your cover garment. You see, physics has not changed, nor have bad guys changed. If someone pulls gun on you, it means he thinks whatever you have, that he wants, is more valuable than your life. Such people do not recognize you or anyone else as a fellow image of God. Now, I don't expect to have to use my handgun, most people do not. But it is like a fire extinguisher. You hope not to need it, but you wnat one if you do.

Woke Pope Becomes a Joke

 Yesterday at the American Thinker Monica Showalter had a post entitled Woke pope becomes a joke and gives Babylon Bee a field day. Now, as many of you know, I am a Lutheran because a number of passages in the Bible specifically deny a pope like figure. You can read these many denials in The Book of Concord to which all confessing Lutherans must confess.

You can read the Babylon Bee's many jabs at His Holiness absurdities and laugh along. I cannot make them funnier by quoting them here. But the last one is the funniest of all. Christ came into the world to defeat Satan once and for all. Therefore, Christ and Satan can never put aside their difference. St. Paul acknowledges this in Romans chapter 6 when he points out that we are now slaves of Christ and not slaves of the sinful flesh.

Showalter, by the way, is a member of the Roman Catholic church. We Lutherans (Martin Luther hiself would be appalled at calling his church "Lutheran.") think of our church as "Evangelical Catholic." That we derive all of our doctrine from the Bible, and add nothing to it, is one of the reasons Martin Luther was excommunicated. It was to maintain the power of the pope. However, we recognize that there are many faithful Catholics who will be saved.

Microstamping makes buying guns and ammo more expensive

 I was watching an old re-run of NCIS where Abby mentions that the murder weapon was a gun with microstamping. Case closed, right? Maybe on TV.  But as Mike McDaniel points out at the American Thinker in a post entitled Ammo serialization has nothing to do with solving crime, not so fast:

Microstamping is laser engraving a unique, identifying code on the tips of firing pins which will “stamp” that code—letters, numbers, etc—on the primers of fired cases. Some microstamping schemes also demand a second stamp elsewhere on a fired case.

One can imagine the many ways to get around microstamping. For instance, changing out the firing pin, filing of the microstamped code from the firing pin, not cleaning your gun, or stealing a gun from some innocent victim, or using a revolver. For that matter, merely policing your brass eliminates any signs of microstamping

But wouldn’t microstamping and serialization help catch criminals? No. In all my years in police work, I never solved a crime committed with a gun by finding and analyzing a fired case, nor was I aware of anyone who did. Virtually all such crimes are solved by old-fashioned police work consisting mostly of talking to people. The shining stainless steel and glass crime labs with holographic projectors and quantum computers of TV crime dramas don’t exist.

Microstamping has been enjoined by federal courts, not only because it’s unconstitutional and a blatantly obvious attempt to make guns and ammo too expensive, but because it doesn’t work. Serialization fails for the same reasons.

And here is the whole point. Microstamping, or indeed any serialization of ammo is not going to solve any crime. As McDaniel points out, you still have to place the criminal at the scene with the gun and prove he fired it. So, the only reason for such laws is to make guns and ammo more expensive for the average person to buy. Criminals will always evade the law. That is what makes them criminals. No, this is to make it harder and more expensive for you and me to buy guns thus making it easier to cram their totalitarianism down our throats.

The Image of God

Today, at the American Thinker in a post by Greg Maresca entitled The post-Roe landscape. I won't comment on most of the article. Gentle readers can read the grim statistics for themselves.

What I wish to comment on is another grim statistic, the lack of training in Christianity. Namely, that God created man in his own image. Every time an innocent human being is killed, another image of God is killed. While self-defense is allowed, mere mortals are not authorized to out and out murder our children. Indeed, God destroyed people who worshipped Molech, a "god" that demanded people throw their first born into the idol's fire in its belly.

He is Risen; He is Risen indeed

 He is Risen; He is Risen indeed!  Thus, Christians around the world greet each other on Easter.  Meanwhile, at the American Thinker J.B. Shurk points out that Leftism Fears Jesus Christ. You know it's true by the way the Left hates and resents us.  Why you would almost think the Devil inspired them.

On Easter, the holiest day of the year, we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord, Savior, and Treasure. Just saying those words out loud — Lord…Savior…Treasure — it is easy to recognize why modern socialist governments find Christianity so threatening. For if He is the King of kings, then all of our would-be masters in this world are pale imposters. If He alone is the Way and the Truth and the Life, then the marble halls of Big Government are just false paths leading to false idols that promise false salvation. If He is the only Treasure, then all of the things that governments do to make us envious, resentful, and hateful toward one another are tricks and lies meant to blind us from the Truth.

A Canadian writer named Dimpee Brar wrote a beautiful and insightful essay on this subject last month. In that essay, Brar draws attention to the more than eighty churches that have been set on fire across her country. She deftly describes how government-sponsored lies instigated these attacks on Christian houses of worship and argues persuasively that Marxist-globalist governments view Christ, Christians, and Christianity as foremost enemies.

Shurk heavily quotes from Brar's essay, much of which is about Canada itself, though we here in the U.S. should be wary because the Democrats have threatened to bring on even worse to us if they win back power. And these threats are not empty. Every one should be taken seriously.

But, the fact is that Jesus can be found not in church buildings. These are built rather for our convenience. God is everywhere and Jesus promises to be present wherever two or three are gathered in His name. We may need to revert to the house churches, or as St. Paul did, rent out spaces in commercial buildings to hold services, and to distribute the Lord's Supper. We may have to go underground to keep our faith alive. So be it. Christ did not promise us prosperity and a care-free life.

Reflections on Good Friday

 Today is Good Friday, the anniversary of the day Christ died on the cross for us and our sins.  It is the most holy day of the year for us Christians, and it has nothing to do with bunnies and eggs.  It is a day when the paraments come off the alters in the Lutheran churches.  Our Lord has died a cruel and undeserved death and will not rise until the third day.  His disciples are huddled in the upper room, sure the authorities are coming for them next. 

Kevin McCollough, at Townhall.com has an article about an incident that occurred while Jesus was hanging on the cross between two thieves. The article is entitled A Thief's Impossible Hope. One thief, representing the world and its sinfulness mocks Jesus and says "If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross and save yourself and us." But McCollough spends his time discussing the other thief, the one who at the last, believed.

The pain is constant now—no waves, no relief, just a steady, crushing reality that presses in from every side. His body is failing. His breaths are shallow. The end is not coming—it’s here.

And yet—something inside him is awakening. Not physically. Spiritually.

Because after everything he’s seen… after everything he’s heard… after the clarity that has broken through his denial and exposed his guilt… something unthinkable begins to rise: Hope.

...snip...

What if this isn’t the end? What if the man next to him… is exactly who He claims to be? What if the kingdom He spoke about… is real? What if death… isn’t the final word?

Do you understand how radical that is in this moment? Because everything around him screams finality.

The nails say it. The blood says it. The crowd says it.

This is the end.

And yet, somehow, the thief is beginning to believe the opposite. Not because of what he feels. But because of what he’s seen.

...snip...

He’s seen a man suffer without hatred. He’s heard forgiveness spoken over executioners. He’s witnessed a kind of authority that doesn’t look like power—but is power. And now, standing at the edge of eternity, he makes a leap.

Not of logic. Of faith. “Jesus… remember me… when you come into your kingdom.”

Jesus does not disappoint. Despite the gruesome torture he has been through, despite the unbearable pain, he grants this man's dying wish before he dies, just as he promises to save everyone who believes and is baptized.

When a man confronts his own sins, some that he may not know, it is enough to drive that man to his knees. But we are saved from hell by a loving God, whose grace is almost unbelievable. What love is this, that Christ was willing to die in this most horrible of ways, to save us from ourselves.

Update:  Please read also Where Evil Became Victory: Good Friday for a Suffering World, by Sarah Holliday.