No wonder they crave power

 Have we heard enough of Michelle Lujan Grisham and her totalitarian edict banning the carrying of guns from Bernalillo County and Albuquerque?  I don't think so.  For one thing, the lawsuits filed against her misuse of her office cost a great deal of money, money you and I contribute to organizations such as Gun Owners of America, the Citizen's Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and state level organizations such as Grass Roots North Carolina. Name me another "right" we have that requires one to constantly sue people to be able to exercise it? Oh, that's right, more and more people are having to sue to exercise their First Amendment rights, but that is because the Second is under so much attack.

Thus it seemed prudent to highlight D. Parker's article at the American Thinker today entitled There's no way gun confiscation can work. At least there is no way it can work as advertised, to prevent crime. But that is not the intent, is it? The Second Amendment has been called by St. George Tucker in his Blackstone's Commentaries the true palladium of liberty. In other words, it protects all the other rights in the Bill of Rights. At the time of the founding, this was radical stuff!

There was a key moment in the pushing of the Overton window in the "temporary" New Mexico gun ban, where the governor and would-be tyrant stated that she doesn't expect criminals to follow the order. In the sane world of 10–20 years ago, that would have been the top story everywhere and the critical point where her political career ended.

Because if the efforts of the fascist far left and the ghouls of the gun-grabbing lobby aren't directed at the actions of criminals, then you have the right to ask: what is the point of their constant obsession with controlling and eliminating our commonsense civil rights?

We know why they don't care about criminals and just focus on disarming the innocent. They will lie on occasion, saying they have concerns about criminals stealing guns from citizens, as justification for their obsession with gun confiscation. That makes about as much sense as banning cars to stop drunk driving. But we do know they have a soft spot for the lawbreaker set, as proven by policies on cash bail.

...snip...

It's a hallmark of every leftist authoritarian down through history, from Lenin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, and Maduro to Obama (Biden), to confiscate guns from his political enemies before annihilating them.

Always remember the sequence: registration, confiscation, annihilation.

You should also take notice that in all those studies by the "leading experts" comparing President Trump to Hitler, these "experts" strangely seem to always leave out this major difference. Doesn't this disprove their expertise?

So, we know one thing they see as a benefit to gun confiscation is to reduce the average Joe to serf status. The Democrats don't really like democracy, and would sooner be in power permanently. Rigging elections is such a waste of time and money, donncha know? But there are other benefits as well, which Parker goes on to explore.

But it gets worse than that — much worse. Anti-liberty leftists always love to play a little game where they characterize legislation under consideration as the greatest thing since sliced bread. (Remember the accolades for the BSCA Bipartisan Safer Communities Act when it was passed?) The bill under consideration will always be the solution to all of our problems just before it's passed, and then suddenly it'll be relegated to being "just a first step" right after. The next measure that comes up will be given the same treatment. Lather, rinse, repeat until our individual liberties are no more.

In the current example, if this is allowed to stand, the gun-grabbing ghouls will then demand formalizing the lists illegally created by the ATF (Rule of Law? what Rule of Law?) and put in place a gun registration system based on a couple of flimsy excuses.

They've also inverted the presumption of innocence. The new presumption under this rule is that if you happen to fall under the vague "guidance" of who is a "dealer," you could be charged as a felon if you do not possess a Federal Firearms License. This isn't the only recent case where this inversion has taken place, and it won't be the last.

The new rule will also impact gun shows in that persons who rent tables will be presumed to be gun dealers. The far left hates gun shows because they're a gathering point for its political opposition. If leftists can reduce or eliminate gun shows, it will boost their fortunes as a result.

But even worse than this, if they can control private property by eliminating private sales, they can exploit that precedent to control other products they deem verboten — gas stoves, air conditioners, whatever. All of this is from one little change in an ATF rule. This is why the ghouls of the gun-grabber lobby obsess over these things. They crave power, and they will take it any way they can.

Gentle readers can read the rest of Parker's article. When you think about it, what Grisham has attempted is breathtaking in its destruction of the rughts of American citizens. For without rights, rights given to us by God, or Creator, and which no one has a right to take away, we are reduced to serfs, little more than property of the state. If we are mere property of the state, the state can do with us as our would be rulers please. No wonder they crave power.

A Note To Gen Z From An Old Fart

 Ranjit Singh tells those students asking for more gun control Dear Gen Z: Get armed, get trained, start carrying, because you are your own first responders. I get it, you are students, and you haven't been given much in the way of history, or civics. You have been protected by...what? You don't know but you ascribe it to "society." You have bought the Koolaid that the police and fire departments are the "first responders." So, Singh is throwing ice cold water on all that and on you.

Well, wake up! Nobody is coming to save you. It is not that the police and don't want to save you, but that they really can't. It is not their jobs.  They are the ones who draw the chalk outlines and investigate the crime after the fact.  They are not your bodyguards, and frankly you don't want them to be.

Here is the truth: if a criminal wants a gun to commit a crime, he will get one. It doesn't matter if guns are not allowed in your "safe zones."  It doesn't matter if guns are banned entirely. The cartels smuggle fentanyl and other drugs into the country, and they can smuggle a few guns too, even full auto assault rifles.  So there will always be guns. Besides, zip guns (I won't show you, but you can look it up on the internet) can easily be fashioned from things you buy at the hardware store. Cartridges can easily be manufactured as well.

When it comes to guns, there is a generational gap as expected. In the wake of the murder of a UNC professor that resulted in a lockdown, there were the usual demands for gun control and even some theatrics from UNC students, especially the editors of the UNC student newspaper, the Daily Tar Heel. A couple of weeks later, there was an unrelated brandishing incident on campus involving a housekeeper that resulted in another lockdown. There were even more histrionic demands for gun control after that.

Some of that is understandable, but what doesn’t compute is the demand for gun control that has repeatedly proven to be ineffective. Gen Z should look at the recent past and see the numerous failures, from Orlando in which the assailant had been interviewed three times by the FBI, the Charleston massacre in which the FBI dropped the ball on the attacker’s background check, Sutherland Springs in which the US Air Force failed to submit a disqualifying domestic violence record to NICS, the Parkland attacker who could have been stopped on several occasions, the Buffalo white supremacist, or the countless incidents of criminals, likely including the UNC murderer, acquiring guns illegally through theft, straw purchases, or other circumvention or willful violation of the law.

When — not if — a criminal or a maniac acquires a gun and proceeds to commit a crime, what would you like to do? Be a sitting duck, locked down in a room with your classmates like fish in a barrel, hoping that the attacker doesn’t breach the door before the police find him? Or would you like to have a chance to fight back, whatever the odds of your success maybe?

So, I am just an old man, and of course, you've got it all figured out. But take it from someone who is old enough to remember, and before I become old enough to forget, carrying a gun gives you options in those extreme cases. Your kitchen has a fire extingusher, right? You have insurance for your car, your health, your home or apartment, right? Carrying a gun is the same thing. You should also carry a knife and a flashlight. Because you never know, and you want to have options. Besides, carrying a gun is a civic duty, like voting.  You will want it someday, believe me.  Now I'll shut up.

The Next Front in the War on Guns

 Andrea Widburg has a post up today at the American Thinker entitled The White House is creating an office to curb gun violence. I urge gentle readers to read the entire article, from which I will quote shortly.

I want to make a few points first. One is that "gun violence" should not be seen as any different from just plain "violence." Whether a criminal beats someone to death, runs them over with a car, stabs them, or hits them with a rock, dead is dead. While guns make killing more efficient, the emphasis should be on not doing so by any means, a point Widburg also makes. The other point, which no one has so far pointed out, is that Biden's creation of a White House office is to get around the Dickey Amendment, which keeps the CDC out of doing anti-gun research. Violence is not a public health problem and treating it as such will not solve it.

So, Mr. Smarty Pants, if applying public health solutions to the problem won't solve it, what will? Glad you asked:

So, if this new White House office to reduce gun violence would like my suggestions, here goes:

- Stop having a revolving-door justice system that sees criminals instantly back on the streets.

- Enforce existing gun laws against actual criminals.

- Encourage fatherhood, which significantly decreases crime.

- Discourage abortion, especially in inner-city communities, because abortion tells young people that life has no value. If a mother doesn’t care about a baby’s life, why should anyone else care about the value of life?

- Encourage the Judeo-Christian faith, not as run through leftism, but as built around the anti-murder values of the Noahide laws and the Ten Commandments.

- Close the border through which violent criminals, especially cartels, are coming.

- Teach gun safety in schools and give children responsible outlets for handling guns. This was also common in America when gun crime was much less.

Dave Workman has more on this at Ammoland in a post entitled Biden to Launch Federal Office for "Gun Violence Prevention."

The Hill reports that the new White House office will have the formal name “Office of Gun Violence Prevention.” We have yet to see whether it actually prevents so-called “gun violence” or merely pushes more restrictive gun control schemes.

Gentle readers are encouraged to get ready for the next push in the war on guns.

What Ever You Call It, It Means Rule By The Elites

 At work the other day, we had a brief discussion about the idea of taxation without representation.  My co-worker insisted that I had representation, and therefore it was right to tax me.  I on the other hand, claimed that I do not have representation. Why?  Because my representative is from a different party than I am, and has different ideas about...well...everything.

Now, I don't know Mr. Wiley Nickel, lately the Congressional representative of the 13th Congressional District of North Carolina, personally.  But I suspect if we met for coffee, we would agree on little.  Mr. Nickel is there because the Democrats, in collusion with the Democrat State Supreme Court and the Democrat Attorney General sued and sued until the Republican Legislature was forced to redraw district maps to make the 13th District a Democrat seat.

Now, Mr. Nickel might be the nicest person in the world.  But being a Democrat, he votes for the Democrat Party line pretty much every time.  And why wouldn't he?  After all, if he goes against the party, they are likely to pull any choice assignments and take away any influence he might have.  Would that Republicans had similar iron party discipline.  But that wouldn't solve the problem.  Not really.

The problem with democracy and with our form of representative democracy is that agree or disagree, the individual is at the mercy of the majority, at least in theory.  But in practice, unless one is one of the "ruling elite," one is at the mercy of the rulers, no matter the system of government.

J. B. Shurk brings all this into sharp focus in an article at the American Thinker today entitled Communism, Fascism, Globalism...What's the Difference? In fact, as Shurk points out, the difference is without distinction. They rule, you obey. Got it?

Monarchy, communism, fascism, globalism — what's the difference? At the end of the day, we are talking about a system of government in which centralized power belongs to a small group of elites who use their control over economic, military, and intelligence-collecting institutions to rule over everyone else. Whether it is a government run by Mussolini, a king, the self-described "proletariat," or an international cabal of central banks and corporations — it is a dictatorship all the same.

Let's not pretend that raw "democracy" is significantly different. As early-twentieth-century sociologist Robert Michels laid out in his treatise, "Political Parties," an "iron law of oligarchy" guarantees that a small group of elites eventually rise to "rule over" any form of democratic organization. Representative democracy, Michels argued, is a "facade" that legitimizes the continuing "rule" of some elite class.

Of course, our Founders saw fit to include in the design of our republic certain rights that are supposed to sacred, and not up for debate or a vote. I fact, they called these first 10 Amendments the "Bill of Rights."  And the courts, appointed for life, are supposed to uphold these rights. Alas, the courts have been very poor at their job. Thus, we have the government saying that freedom is slavery, that free speech requires censorship, boys can become girls, and other such asininity. It is as if they are using George Orwell's novel 1984 as a how-to manual. In short, the system is rigged so that the rich and powerful become richer and more powerful, while the rest of us toil to make them rich and powerful.

The other thing our Founders designed into the system was limits to what the government could do. As long as the government stayed within the limits provided for its scope, it didn't impact the average citizen too much, and that was a good thing. But over the last 120 years or so, the government has blown past all limits on itself. to where it has become a leviathon, and we were persuaded to let it do so.

This whole globalist march toward a New World Order is taking us to a place where Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, George Soros, their clones, a few royal families, a few multinational investment firms, a handful of central bank pirates, and a small club of international politicians can sit around a circular table adorned with a map of the world under their oppressive control. Even then, with the whole world belonging to a few dozen people (sprinkled with a politically correct ratio of races, ethnicities, and made-up genders, of course), the ruling dictators will haughtily chortle, "This is what democracy looks like."

They would be right. In practice, "democracy" looks a lot like a small cabal of ruling elites forcing everyone else to obey their commands. Whenever sane people reach the mistaken conclusion that they are actually in charge of their own government, they are quickly reminded that all dissent must be met with political persecution, lawless surveillance, unjust arrest, and censored speech — you know, the standard J6 treatment.

Mass protests against vote fraud and in support of free and fair elections are arguably the essence of real democracy — unless "democracy" really just means rule by the Clintons, Bushes, Obamas, McConnells, Pelosis, the Federal Reserve, the Intelligence Community, and the wealthiest, woke-iest ESG-DIE-supporting elites. In that case, real democracy must be punished as insurrectionist treason. The people must be made to believe that they are governing themselves but can never be allowed to actually do so.

The "ruling class" will spy on, harass, intimidate, imprison, and torture the whole American population, by golly, if doing so will allow it to preserve the illusion of a stable "democracy." Any American who opposes being Abu Ghraib–ed on U.S. soil, after all, is only pushing some dangerous form of "populism" that should be ignored. Much as an abuser justifies physical harm for the victim's "own good," the federal government has decided that the surefire way to save "democracy" is to beat the American people into submission. Only when the people have been coerced into a state of compliance will they be given back their "privileges." When the "ruling class" says that MAGA is a threat to "democracy," what it means is that any political movement operating outside of its control is a threat to the continued dictatorship of the Deep State.

Shurk believes that the way out of this mess is to return to the notion if individual liberty, of limited government. I am not so sure. The Left has been putting the take over of the world, and of course the United States for decades. Such a single minded purpose and design is a conspiracy that can only be called demonic. It will take the power of God and Jesus Christ to overcome. We must do what we can, but we must also trust in Him and pray.

Tradition is Self-defense. The Novel Idea Is Gun-control

Many thanks to the The Armed Lutheran for bringing this to my attention. It seems that the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS), a traditionally conservative church body, is trying to go woke. I suspect that if it does, it will eventually mean the end of the LCMS.  It has published a rewrite of the Large Catechism, (which didn't need to be rewritten. But I digress.)

The Large Catechism is for the teaching of the faith to students usually 12-13 years old.  This teaching usually lasts 2 years, at the end of which students are confirmed and take their first Communion.  Communion is the center of our worship services, so it is important that students understand what it means to be a faithful Christian. 

Included in the Large Catechism is a discussion on the meaning of all the 10 Commandments.  But the discussion on the 5th Commandment that is truly egregious. Unfortunately, the LCMS got someone to write that section who doesn't believe in the right to self-defense.  But T. R. Halvorson has an excellent rebuttal to the article that is well worth reading:

What – the right of self-defense did not arise without the exercise of reason? It did not exist before the Enlightenment? That is historically inaccurate and jurisprudentially incompetent.

When I read that, I recalled off the top of my head what we were taught in my law school by Dean Robert Sullivan in his two, four-semester hour “Introduction to Law I & II” courses. The right of self-defense historically and jurisprudentially has existed, insofar as written history shows, in nearly every time, place, culture, and society. Today, self-defense is a recognized tenet of international law, which of course is not dependent solely on the European Enlightenment.

Halvorson then goes on to cite examples of laws both ancient and relatively modern, and in various cultures that include a right to self-defense. These include the ancient Hebrews. Indeed, Exodus 22:2 states:

If the thief is found breaking in, and he is struck so that he dies, there shall beno guilt for his bloodshed.

Note that if a thief attacks at night, the householder has no way of determining if the bad guy is armed, or if he seeks to take his life. In the day, one can make such assessments which is why there is a difference. But clearly, self-defense is admitted. This is but one example, but it shows that the Lord does not condone pacifism. Halvorson cites others from ancient Greece, ancient Rome, Islamic law and Canon law. The idea of self-defense is as old as written law, and probably older.

Self-defense is not new. What is "new" and novel is the notion that we should depend on the police to defend us. But of course, the job of the police has never been to act as bodyguards. The police are paid to provide over all law enforcement for the community. But everyone who has ever speeded in traffic must be aware that the police do not ticket every speeder every time. What the police do is to investigate the homicide and attempt to catch the killer. I would also point out that rarely do criminals commit a crime right in front of a police officer. So, despite the advertisement that the police and fire men are first responders, the actual first responder is the one being assaulted. Shouldn't he or she have the tools necessary to defend himself or herself effectively?

Then, there is the moral objection to the idea of the police being your bodyguard. You are asking someone to potentially take a bullet for you for a modest sum of money, like say $50,000. Is your life infinitely precious, but his is only worth $50 grand? No, that is not right. Every life is infinitely precious. Therefore, it becomes incumbent on each and every one of us, indeed it is a civic and religious duty, to defend ourselves and those in our care. Don't even animals use whatever means at their disposal to defend themselves? How much more should we?

The article by T. R. Halvorson is about the error involved in teaching young skulls full of mush that to defend themselves and to carry weapons to do so is somehow wrong.  We have seen though that God himself expects us to do so.  To do otherwise is to spit on His great gift of life.

But what about laws, also very modern, that make entire areas of cities so called "gun free zones."  We see university students held hostage to monsters that snub the "gun free zone" laws and attempt to commit mass murder there.  We see it in malls, airports, churches, movie theaters, indeed anywhere that people are prevented by law from carrying a gun.  Recently, although New Mexico has permits for people to carry concealed, the governor tried to declare an entire county a gun free zone.  But the governor when questioned admitted that criminals would continue to carry.  With that admission by the governor herself, one has to ask if the people who make and enforce such laws do not have blood on their hands?

Just asking...

One Catholic Diocese Upholds Christian Principles

Andrea Widburg has a post reporting that at least one Catholic bishop is not intimindated by the Left and is asserting Christian prinicples. You can find the post at the American Thinker entitled A Catholic Diocese throws down the guantlet on all things LGBTQ+.

Two of the worst Supreme Court opinions are Obergefell, finding an imaginary constitutional right to gay marriage, and Bostock, reading transgenderism into Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, the Diocese of Cleveland, by announcing that it is abandoning all LGBTQ+ ideology and practices, may give rise to a Supreme Court case that wipes out those legal abominations.

...snip...

Kennedy’s writing was slop, but it was slop that set up a very disturbing constitutional crisis: namely, the moment when a same-sex couple sues a conservative religious institution for refusing to marry it. When I mentioned this problem to a leftist lawyer, he scoffed. Much as the Catholic church opposed abortion, he pointed out, that had never caused a constitutional crisis. I responded that the Catholic church didn’t perform abortions.

...snip...

But the Diocese of Cleveland just did something that is great on its face, and that may finally force the Supreme Court to revisit these constitutionally corrupt decisions: It said that its Christian values must control when it comes to the question of human sex and sexuality. According to the Diocese, there are only two sexes, and heterosexuality is the only appropriate relationship.

The Bishop’s new “Parish & School Policy on Issues of Sexuality and Gender Identity” is remarkably clear. Its opening paragraph establishes that the rules it states are grounded in divine revelation. It acknowledges that people suffer from gender dysphoria or confusion and expresses sympathy for their sufferings but says that their belief “is contrary to the divinely revealed reality of our true, God-given human nature.” Compassion is called for but not more.

It is good to see that Bishop Edward Malesic has some spine. So often we see Catholic prelates who bend the knee to the Left rather than to Christ, who he should bow down to. Note that the policy calls for "compassion" for the gender confused. Compassion means sympathy and concern for the afflcted. It does not mean that we are supposed to enable the delusion or to pretend that it is reality. Those of us bound to reality must recognize that in reality, sex is binary.

It’s amazing that it took this long for a religious institution to stand up for religious principles. I hope the Diocese is braced for the inevitable lawsuits from activist employees or parents—and when those lawsuits come, I hope the Diocese has the resolve to take them to the Supreme Court if need be. Maybe, then, the Supreme Court will reverse the constitutional monstrosities that are Obergefell and Bostock.

Indeed.

Guns are a salvation to the innocent and a hinderence to the criminal

Over at Bearing Arms today, Cam Edwards has an interesting analysis of the recent infringement of the Second Amendment by the NM governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. His take is that the gun-grabbers are losing. But rather than rethink their positions, they are doubling down. You can read the article at Michelle Lujan Grisham Tries To Revive Democrats' "Massive Resistance" to Civil Rights. To set the table, Edwards recalls the Democrats resistance to Brown v. Board of Education in Farmville, Virginia in 1954:

Just off the main drag in Farmville, Virginia there’s an unassuming brick building next to a brightly painted tarpaper structure. The unobtrusive sign out front identifies the building at the Robert Russa Moton Museum; a largely unknown place that was the site of one of the most significant events in the civil rights movement. The museum was once R.R. Moton High School, the black public high school in Prince Edward County. In 1951, then 15-year-old Barbara Johns led her fellow students on a walkout in protest of the deplorable conditions of the building and the education they received.

...snip...

While Brown v. Board of Education was decided in 1954, public schools weren’t integrated in Prince Edward County for another decade. The school system dragged out any attempt to abide by the decision for years, and when that became untenable the county decided to shut down the public schools entirely rather than integrate. The “Massive Resistance” movement eventually resulted in several communities shuttering their schools, though none for as long as Prince Edward County. It took another Supreme Court decision in 1964 to re-open the schools, this time to both black and white students.

When I first moved to the Farmville area a decade ago I met a man who’d spent several years being taught in a church basement and in the living rooms of family and friends by parents and other adults who refused to let kids go unschooled. In fact, he was the one who told me about this shameful history in the first place.

Both Farmville and the nation at large have come a long way since 1951. Sadly, Massive Resistance to a Supreme Court decision is making a comeback among Democrats, and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham seems intent on becoming the standard bearer for the movement.

Edwards then draws a comparison between the Democrats of the 1950s and 1960s, who believed, incorrectly, in segregation of the two races to the Democrats of today who believe, again incorrectly, that gun control is crime control. This despite all the evidence to the contrary. The citizen that obtains a permit to carry concealed is not the one shooting up the neighborhood and killing innocent bystanders.  He is not the one doing drive by shootings or committing mass murder, much as the new media salivates for it to be true.  Further, the criminals, as Grisham admits, will not be dissuaded by any edict she might make. But, like Democrats before, she is doubling down.

Like her fellow civil rights suppressors in the 1950s and 60s, Grisham is ultimately lashing out because she’s losing. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and there’s a portion of the gun control movement that believes it’s time to start lobbing Hail Marys through executive orders and tossing verbal hand grenades at the Supreme Court over Bruen, while the more institutional wing seems intent on taking a more traditional incrementalist approach. If Grisham thought she was acting in a position of strength in proclaiming a constitutional right suspended because of a self-proclaimed public health emergency (at a time when homicides are actually trending down in Albuquerque, by the way), the backlash from many of her fellow Democrats and the refusal to enforce her order by local and state officials should have disabused her of her delusions. I think she was well aware of the weakness of her position before she made her announcement. She just decided if she was going to “do something”, she might as well do something big.

Grisham has backed down slightly from her original order, a decision I suspect that is almost entirely based on the unwillingness of police and prosecutors to go along. Massive Resistance implies mass, after all, and in Grisham’s case she (so far, anyway) hasn’t had the institutional backing she needs to pull off her unconstitutional scheme. That may have even factored into her decision to revise her original order instead of bringing lawmakers back to Santa Fe for a special session to address this “emergency”; she knows that she doesn’t have the political capital at the moment to control the outcome and ensure that her desired gun control bills get passed.

Let us hope that Edwards is correct, and that we are in the last stages of gun bigotry. Guns are inanimate tools, nothing more. Properly used, they are a hiderance to the two legged predetor and a salvation to the innocent.