Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Gun Gouge 2016

...goes along with Obama GunRush #3

Bundy Militia, continued

Start by reading my previous post.

Note that in that post, I never said that I was against the use of Militia, and I think that if you had followed this blog for much of the eleven years it has been out here, you should know that by now. I fully support the idea of Militia, and while I don't fit into either category of it, organized or un-organized anymore, due to age, there is nothing to say that I couldn't assist a militia unit to become operational. In fact, I performed duty in the Air National Guard along lines connected to this (logistics planning, exercise, testing and evaluation in Organized Militia units).

The Internet is a fine tool for assisting the assembly of Militia, at least for now. If the Militia "movement" really gets going, I expect the Government to attempt to end the use of Internet for that purpose. Good luck to them, there are many, many savvy IT people who would help establish a new network almost immediately.

How does one get a militia unit going? Talk is cheap so I'll spend some of that coin...

To start with, a leader is needed. The definition of leader here is largely one of communicator. The leader is probably going to have been a good communicator all along. The leader decides to form a unit, and when drawing the plans, the leader FIRST considers mission: the employment of the unit, and it's scope of mission. This could range from defending a few blocks of a neighborhood against invaders from outside of that area, all the way up to defending large chunks of a major political sub-division, such as several counties. Note that the drift of this paragraph is on defense of a slice of land and it's buildings, etc. This is how most militia units come into being: they are NOT force-projection units, they ARE areal defense units. Militia can act in force projection, but to do so requires a huge leap of transition from a few folks defending their neighborhood when the usual order fails, up to and including a unit capable of travelling long distances, supporting itself away from it's home area and performing missions NOT related to simple areal protection. This is several orders of magnitude more complex in all organizational and logistical respects.

To relate this to the Harney County, Oregon situation, Ammon Bundy brought his people hundreds of miles and then took over a Government compound, declaring it and the extensive land it controlled to have changed hands and not be controlled by the Bureau of Land Management anymore. That's a tall order for a militia mission, and the military would probably not even try that without the use of a battalion-sized unit (close to 1,000 troops). If contesting for land in this size range, a military unit might have to be a Division or greater. Bundy does not have even a platoon available, maybe not more than a rifle squad. (See this Wiki, down a ways under "Armies") Even if Bundy were to attract a few hundred more folks to join his militia, he wouldn't have more than two companies at best. Given the remoteness of his objective, at least half of his force will have to be engaged in resupply at all times. Logistics theory and practice does not favor success of his operation. Weather in that area is barely better than sub-arctic at present, with daytime highs in the twenties and night-time lows near or below zero. If this report is accurate, Bundy's militia did not come properly equipped to hold the territory they have seized.

The lesson here is quite clear: if you are to have a successful militia, and we NEED successful militia, it has to be formed from a plan which includes it's SPECIFIC mission, not a political concept, but a military mission, definable in military terms. Ammon Bundy's militia seems to have been formed more along the lines of a political debating society, what we call an "activist" group nowadays, but as one who has performed military duty out in the cold Northwest winters, AND one who has performed in a debating society/activist group, I'm here to tell you that there is ZERO crossing-over between the two experiences. Sorry, Commenter Richard, I do concur with your political objectives, but they cannot be accomplished this way in Harney County, Oregon.

The Bundy Militia gets it wrong.

I am totally for Militia. Militia have two purposes: suppressing crime very locally when civil authorities cannot, and suppressing tyrannical Government on a scale up to National. With a HUGE stretch of the imagination, one might say that Bundy the Younger has the second mission in mind. That's all I am going to give him, because everything else about his occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge HQ buildings is a disaster.

First, he claims to lead a paramilitary force, a Militia. If you lead such a force, as Commander, you have many responsibilities, such as training and equipping your troops, and maintaing good order and discipline throughout all phases of operations. Bundy seems to have planned well enough as to logistics, but that is all we can see or know about his outfit. The biggest decision for any Militia leader is when to deploy on an operation. Sometimes this is obvious, such as against criminal gangs terrorizing your Militia operating area. Sometimes it is NOT obvious, like the Malheur operation.

Malheur is just another piece of territory controlled by the Bureau of Land Management. Oregon has many such pieces of land. Has Bundy declared war upon the BLM and by logical extension, the entire Federal Government? A case can be built that such is his actual operation, and if so, it deserves to fail, and I will now tell you why.

The Federal Government has too much power, uses that power in very ugly ways, and needs to be dialed back to a Constitutional level. Okay, now that we have THAT out in the open, how is that BEST done? Bundy has apparently decided that it is best done by Militia occupying land and buildings, and he had moved his Militia to do that. Here is why he will fail, and then I will list why his failure will set back the program to dial back the Federal Government's power by many, many years.

Just like the two previous Militia operations, Bundy Ranch and Sugar Pine Mine, the tactic of the Feds will be to do nothing but wait. After a month or so, if previous form is followed, the Militia will declare victory and go home. Their declaration of victory will be hollow, however. They will have achieved NOTHING permanent, and the Feds, on the other hand, will have more press-fodder with which to vilify the entire idea of Militia. In other words, the Malheur operation will be a failure, because the only advantage at the end will go to the Feds, not the Militia.

Okay, by now, you must be screaming at your computer monitor, "Hey Rivrdog, if YOU are so smart, how would YOU stop these abuses of Federal power." That would be a fair question to ask, and I would answer it by saying that Militia needs to be prepared, it needs to be openly prepared, it needs to be universally prepared, and when the fight finally comes, the Feds will lose, because they will be seen as having their jackbooted thugs killing ordinary Americans for merely exercising their right to defend themselves. I believe that the mere raising of Militias in an open manner will eventually provoke the Feds into an armed confrontation, and no deployment of Militia is necessary. We wait, they will come to us. Part of the Second Amendment EXPRESSLY permits formation and maintenance of Militia.

We are already at war with the Feds, and the Feds are fighting this war with Psychological Warfare strategies and tactics, and we are losing it so far, mostly because we have failed to prepare for the use of PsyWar. In other words, Bundy has oversimplified the PsyWar (if he sees the use of PsyWar at all, I'm not sure he does). He sees it as a local thing (he has already lost that skirmish, the locals hate his ops) and maybe as a national thing to try to galvanize the right-wing base. He DOES NOT see it as a fight which involves every American citizen, as it eventually must.

More simply put, the Feds and their sycophant allies in the MSM now have a huge public relations weapon with which to bash the Right. It will also be used to bash the Second Amendment and it will be used as the basis for MORE federal regulation of public lands, not LESS regulation.

Bundy has lost before he started, and every day he stays at Malheur, the loss gets worse.

That "Ruh-Roh" feeling about the 2A

The feeling is, that the major attack on it which will be the hallmark of Obama's failed presidency is but weeks away, maybe days away.

Yesterday, Obama made a speech about terrorism and internal security. I listened. As the lies started to flow, I was lulled momentarily by the fact that it was all, well, so BOILERPLATE. We will kill ISIS....yada-yada. Home-grown terrorists are harder to catch and get ahead of....yada-yada. I almost zoned the prez totally out as I was doing scut work in the kitchen at the time.

Then the alarm bells started going off. the "Ruh-Roh Alarm" sounded loudly. I re-focused. I followed Fox' handy talking points crawl at the bottom of the screen. The Obama-rama Show wrapped up, and the alarms were still going off.

Why? What alarms? Glad you asked!

OBAMA NEVER MENTIONED GUNS IN THAT SPEECH, NOT ONCE.

He not only didn't mention it, but his two favorite follow-ons were missing: no words on "it's Congress' fault", no "It's the NRA's fault", no "gun-show loophole's" fault. Especially, no "I have a pen and a phone" reference to Executive Action.

Here's a little thing from my military days: when you are at war, a shooting war, and you stumble right onto the enemy and THEY DON'T SHOOT AT YOU, that is worth some brain work to find out why. In infantry warfare, when this happens with reconnaisance patrols, the usual reason is that the enemy has something major going on nearby they don't want you to discover (a hidden HQ, for example), so they let you on through without resistance, hoping that the major-something doesn't get discovered and quickly attacked by a larger force than you represent.

I had this vibe about Obama's speech yesterday. Just now, I got up at 0645, went downstairs to get a clean coffee cup, and while I was getting it, Fox News was expounding on the thoughts I have just expressed, above. Apparently, they did some digging (or just read some O-flunky's lips), and Fox has concluded, as I did yesterday, that some Gun Control Executive Action is forthcoming, fairly immediately.

A fellow blogger of this region, one I read most days (except when he's all pedantic about IPSC, because he is a Rules Monster in that sport), just pointed out that The Hill, a notable, if mostly Left, publication about "Washington Inside", ventures that Obama is readying his Un-Constitutional Edict now, and it will be released, with suitable fanfare, right after the holidays (or sooner, I would surmise).

What will the edict bring?

Well, if Bloomie was in on it, it will bring at least a National Capacity Limit for magazines (resurrect Clinton's, most likely), likely some sort of "Assault Weapons Ban" (again, resurrect Clinton's, but tighten it up so that chosen manufacturers can't grease palms like Bill Ruger did with his Ranch Rifle and buy their way out of it). I'm guessing that there won't be confiscation in it, for now. Obama is likely content to leave that up to Hillary, who has said that she would go down that road. If Hillary doesn't make it to POTUS, there won't be Federal confiscations, except maybe for a 50-cal ban and grab. 50BMG weapons are at risk because they are one RCH (look it up, it's military slang) away from being designated as Destructive Devices now, and that could be done easily by edict.

So, it's time to ask: if POTUS tries to kill the 2A by edict (Clinton did it with Congress, you will recall), what will the GOPe Congress do?

Absolutely Nothing. Need proof: Look at the super-pork bill they just passed. These are NOT the Conservative droids you are looking for...

What will Yours Truly do? Absolutely Nothing. Yep, I am not going to go to war over anything less than active confiscations, which I WILL use my skills against. Why am I promising nothing? You haven't read this blog for long, have you, my friends? If you had, you will note that I advised the purchase of all firearms, magazines and ammo that might be banned from sale, way back in '08, when it began to look like Obama was going to get the (D) nomination. If you DIDN'T follow this blog, and DIDN'T accumulate your weapons since then, you have an immediate task to do so, if you want any.

Told 'ya.

Support your local Militia

Threat Horizon: Nexus of evil now arriving. The massive in-migration of muslim "refugees", guaranteed to have a significant percentage of Jihadis among them (my estimate  is 10-20%) AND the simultaneous crippling of assertive, crime-preventative policing by marxist groups such as "Black Lives Matter" and the "New Black Panthers" is putting US cities in grave danger. This cannot be reversed for at least 15 months, if then.

Militia is the answer. Our forefathers foresaw this need, and wisely included the Second Amendment among our enumerated Freedoms. The Second Amendment, of course, builds upon the Natural Right of self-defense. Self defense itself must be organized in the face of organized threats such as the Muslim invasion, or Hijrah.

Such organized self-defense is known as Militia in this nation, and we have plenty of precedent for it. How do we prepare for the use of Militia?

The very thought of the subject of Militia strikes terror into the hearts of the Federal Government, and they have used and will use every bit of power at their disposal to prevent the development of Militia. What will they do?

Intimidation: Say you want to have a "pre-Muster", that is, get a militia unit going. That calls for communications of outreach, at which time which the Federal Government is immediately alerted to your intent, and they will assume that this militia will attempt a violent overthrow of the Government, and they will react accordingly. Their first reaction will be intimidation. They will send FBI or DHS agents to meet the organizers, to bluster and attempt to intimidate the organizers out of forming any prospective Militia unit.

Militia organizers must be prepared for such repressive tactics. First, organizers must know their Constitutional rights to organize any group, and must insure that good order and discipline is in effect to prevent any legitimate public fear of a Militia. No one can prevent ignorant fear, but fact-based fear must be prevented. No one can be permitted to speak for the Militia unit in terms of political objectives, only in terms of protection of lives and property from all threats. It would not be good to advertise a Militia unit as a "Christian" militia, or an "anti-Muslim" militia, even if those objectives are part of the fabric of organization due to the current threat horizon. The purpose of any Militia is always protection of life and property, period. Proper protectrion strategies are likely to place the Militia unit in conflict with criminal and/or religious-based attacks, and that must be realized and prepared for. Secondarily, the Militia unit should be prepared to assist the civil police, unless it is the case that the civil police have been co-opted by authorities with the objective of defeating the concept and fact of Militia. In no case should the Militia be governed by local police authorities, or it ceases to be Militia and becomes just another police auxiliary unit.

Logistical opposition: Let us postulate that the organization of a Militia unit went well, and the unit has progressed via training to field-capable status. It is still not properly prepared if it is not able to be self-sufficient. You may bet your last dollar on the fact that the Federal government will attempt to impose materiel restrictions on the populace to hamper Militia operations. These restrictions will be on fuel supply, ammunition and weapons availability, and by means of curfews which will always be enforced against Militia, never against favored classes (the opposition). Curfews can be constructed so that even power cut-offs to militia-controlled areas of a city are used against Militia units. Food will be in short supply anyway, as the Federal government will use such a shortage to attempt to control the population.

The success or failure of a Militia unit to achieve it's goal of protection of life and property over the long term will be dependent on the support of the population that is being protected.

In future articles, we will discuss how the average family can help it's local Militia operate, by volunteering not only members of that Militia unit, but real goods to keep the Militia going.

Public money DIRECTLY spent for a gun grab

Cross-posted from Straight_Case gunblog, your Straight Spine bulletin board.

Interesting case, all the more so because it all happened within 5 miles of my residence.

Fact set: Crazy kid defeats lock on older brother's gun safe (a sheet-metal type, it sounds like), takes an AR-15, a vest and plenty of ammo then goes to shoot up the local High School (biggest high school in the State). He kills one, wounds another, but when the pressure is applied by the good guys, he kills himself (standard MO of these cowards).

Of course, that's when the gun-grabbing drama-llamas took over, and as a result, you have probably heard of the Reynolds High School shooting of last year.

Continuing. At the time, there was quite some speculation that the liberal Multnomah County District Attorney would charge the shooter's older bro (gun owner) with some crime, but in the end, no one could prove that the safe was left unlocked (and Oregon lacks "safe storage" laws anyway), and older bro said he had locked it. So, no crime was charged, but the authorities kept the AR and associated equipment. The older bro SUED THE CITY OF TROUTDALE, because Oregon law is quite clear that when no charges are preferred, evidence seized MUST be returned to lawful owners within a time certain.

Enter: the Troutdale City Attorney. It seems that he disagrees with his superior prosecutor, the DA, and wanted charges on older bro, but lacks jurisdiction to file them (in Oregon, only minor crimes may be charged by a City, most crimes have to be charged by the District Attorney), so he dithered and kept the gun, which was in the custody of the Troutdale Police Property Room. A State Judge heard the lawsuit, and ruled in favor of the plaintiff (older bro) that the gun and equipment must be returned. The City Attorney stalled, but apparently figured out a way to keep the plaintiff's gun: give him Fair Market Value for it. The lawsuit was soon settled.

According to this article, the City Council buried the payment to older bro on a lengthy and boring agenda of City Council administrative business, and snuck it through, except for the reporters on the City Beats. Oregonian Reporter Steve Duin, a gun-grabber himself by many previous writings, noticed and wrote the story up. Okay, at least said reporter is a digger, is willing to take on government hanky-panky, right?

Nazzofast, Guido. Read the whole article.

About fifty words in, Reporter Duin writes a paragraph listing the property involved in the lawsuit:

"One Daniel Defense Armament DDM4 carbine rifle, one of the bullies in the AR-15 family (emphasis added). Eight 30-round Magpul magazines. A “plate carrier” vest, a United State Army standard-issue laundry bag and “several hundred rounds” of ammunition."

It appears that TWO people have now personified the rifle (illogically made an inanimate object into a person), not only the City Attorney, who could not bear the idea of the gun being returned to it's rightful and blameless owner, AND Reporter Duin, who has declared that the most popular rifle in the USA is a "bully".

I was taught that there is no higher authority on the etymology of the English Language than the Oxford English Dictionary, so I went there and looked up "bully":

"(pl. bullies) a person who uses their strength or power to frighten or hurt weaker people"  (my emphasis).

O.E.D. very specifically refers to a "bully" as a PERSON (twice, once directly and one indirectly).

So sorry, Steve Duin, old sport, your anti-gun predjudice is STILL showing in your public writing. Don't bother apologizing or issuing a correction though, it would compound your anti-liberty personality defect by adding insincerity to it.

Typepad is fixed, so I write...

So now I can scribble my sweet nothings about Saving The Culture again! Oh, goody!

Bragging Humble: Yes it is possible for a little fish in a big ocean to matter, all you have to do is migrate upstream to a smaller water body, to wit:

Gresham, Oregon. I live in the 4th largest city in Oregon, and all of the other Cities bigger than Gresham are far more liberal. Portland being the best example of a lib-town.

Gresham is over 100,000 now, but there are enough conservatives (relatively-speaking, the citizens are "conservatives") living here to actually cause the City Administration and other functionaries of Government to have to plan to accomodate our points of view.

Example: Recently, a wrong-headed school Principal sent a lad home for wearing a tee shirt depicting the "Battlefield Cross", or combination of boots, rifle and helmet that has come to symbolize a soldier who fell in battle, making the ultimate sacrifice for his country. This caused an immediate outrage in Gresham, an outrage which spurred the liberal Oregonian newspaper to opine:

  Common sense deficit: The subject of firearms is a sensitive one these days, particularly in schools. Even so, the treatment an eighth-grade student in Gresham’s Dexter McCarty Middle School almost beggars belief.    Alan Holmes wore a T-shirt to school last week that featured an image of a rifle. No, Holmes wasn’t wearing promotional NRA gear. On his shirt, rather, was an arrangement of helmet, boots and rifle widely used to indicate respect for fallen soldiers. Lest anyone mistake the arrangement for anything but a memorial, the shirt also read, “Standing for those who stood for us.” Holmes was told that his shirt violated the school’s dress code, The Oregonian/OregonLive’s Laura Frazier wrote. His choices: Change it or go home. He went home, and the district has since promised to review its dress code. We’ll see where that goes.    The code, as Frazier reported, prohibits clothing with, among other things, “violence related references.” To cram Holmes’ shirt within this definition is a stretch, to say the least. But if a memorial arrangement that contains a rifle is too disturbing a thing for Gresham’s eighth-graders to witness, district officials might want to reconsider Gresham High School’s fight song too. It begins as follows: “March, march on down the field/ Fighting for Gresham High/We’ll back the blue and white/With the spirit of do or die.”    March, fight, do or die. That’s awfully martial.    And talk about “violence related references.”

Well, then. If Liberal Portland can opine, conservative Gresham might feel a tad stronger. The Gresham Outlook published my letter on the subject, a letter in which, as a Veteran, I demand redress of insults to me and all local Veterans, as well as the child directly affected. Note how the Editor dressed it up with a bold sidebar of my demands:

Folks, this business of Saving The Culture can get into some conflict. I am laying MY creds on the line here, and demanding, as a citizen, that the culture be protected from the erosion of the faceless liberal zombies. In MY day, this erosion would never have happened, because respect for veterans who fell in battle was automatic, and never questioned. Maybe we can't go all the way back to that time, but we can and MUST demand the respect due our heroes of war.

I am shortly going to have major surgery, and will miss the next meeting of the School Board, in which I would, in the normal course of events, have presented these demands in person. I am working on a surprise for the School Board, though, and my message should still get through. Let's just say that I am not the only Grumpy Major in these parts, and two others ought to be there in my stead at the meeting on November 5th. Thanks to the magic of You Tube, I might be there myself...more later when I get that video up.

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UPDATE: 11022015: The surgery has been postponed, so I will be at the school board meeting with some of my pals to represent my demands in person. See you there!

POTUS shows his colors

On Wednesday, the pro-2A site, Bearing Arms, published an article detailing several parents of Roseburg shooting victims who had objected to President Obama's political blood-dancing for gun control immediately after the horrific crimes were committed.

Yesterday, as the parents/families of the victims were assembled at Roseburg High School to meet Obama for his supposedly-humanitarian trip to Roseburg, one parent was excluded. Note that he was one of the parents who had expressed his displeasure at Obama's blood-dancing.

Several observations:

• This puts the definite lie to Obama's claim that the trip was solely for humanitarian purposes, to "hug" the parents and family members of the victims. Even if Mr. Cooper had had an angry moment before, he should have been invited. He could have been privately frisked for weapons and accompanied by several Secret Service agents if there was any threat past verbal anger, but he should have been invited, not excluded.
• Obama can't stand the heat, and should stay the HELL out of the kitchen.
• Politically, Obama just lost ALL of the bona fides he might have built up for making the trip, and the National orgs which protect the 2A ALL need to follow my example and spread this news far and wide. NOW!

Anyone who still lacked an insight into Obama's character need look no farther than this display of discourteous cowardice.

Yes, COWARDICE.

Resign, Mister President. You are unfit to hold office for another minute.

Cross-posted from Straight_Case blog.

Roseburg AAR, early report

I wasn't there, but I monitored.

Damn good thing common sense prevailed and the protest was unarmed (visibly, anyway). My info says that staged nearby was a LARGE force of cops, most from the Portland region, ready to be the Arrest Team if things went badly for POTUS.

Lots of good press for the protesters, though, and little to no visibility for the gun-grabbers.

Defend Roseburg?

Various loosely-connected groups, most connected only by the fact that they have standardized their armaments, have announced that they will "Defend Roseburg" when POTUS makes his "sell the angst" trip there tomorrow.

Ummmm, okay then. Since the groups are using military terms, and will be armed with military-looking weapons (which they prefer to carry openly, don'tcha know), let's consider their operation from a military perspective (because you can be sure that the Secret Service and Homeland Security will).

• A military operation is always preceded by an operations plan. Other than "show up", "Defend" has given adherents few instructions which could be considered part of an op-plan. One must presume that the "Defend" leaders will assign protest locations, etc, on the fly as their folks show up. This operation looks very un-military.
• A military operation generally is led by leaders who have had experience leading other operations. There are two possibilities to consider here: Bundy Ranch and Sugar Pine Mine. Both of those operations were carried out by coalitions of Constitutionalists, with the organization Oath Keepers being the glue that held the outfit together. Let's look at Oath Keepers, shall we?

Oath Keepers started out about ten years ago (or that's when I became aware of them). Initially, they had one mission, to remind members of the military and police departments of their duty to their Constitution, and to do this, they promulgated a list of the "Ten Orders we must never obey". I signed their pledge, as did a number of my police buddies of the time. The Ten Orders are obvious, because they would be the orders of a dictator to facilitate a dictatorial coup d'etat and suspension of the Constitution. I still believe in Oath Keepers' proscription of those Ten Orders.

Then "mission creep" happened at Oath Keepers. The outfit decided to assume Militia duties.

Bundy Ranch happened, then Sugar Pine Mine, and at the last one, the Oath Keepers appeared as a Militia from the start, and carried out an armed Militia operation, holding ground by force of arms. They never exchanged fire in either of their operations, but they were very well prepared to. They had good discipline and were "well-regulated" in the full sense of the term.

While I was encouraged by Oath Keepers' obvious good discipline in their first two Militia operations, what they did in both cases amounted to a staring contest, and the Federal forces blinked first, both times.

Oath Keepers is still not proven under fire.

They might get that chance, though, and within 24 hours, in Roseburg, Oregon. In case Oath Keepers hasn't employed any intelligence for their operation, I will give them the benefit of mine, which in the past, has involved working directly with the Secret Service's Presidential Protection Detail. I have actually gotten to inspect the Presidential vehicles and talk with the Special Agent In Charge of that unit (at the time, he was a good friend of the family).

The intel nugget for Oath Keepers: This will NOT be a Bundy Ranch or Sugar Pine Mine. You will NOT be dealing with some over-promoted BLM Enforcement Supervisor and his storm troopers. You will be dealing with the Presidential Protection Detail, which just happens to be the best at what they do of any such units. This Detail also has wide latitude to employ deadly force in the protection of the President. They do not have to issue deadly force warnings. If they detect a threat to the POTUS, they will shoot first, and they will kill. Period. End of story.

If the Detail has to employ deadly force against Oath Keepers, you can bet that every one who ever had the first contact with them will be heavily interrogated. I expect to be contacted in that instance, myself. The organization WILL be taken apart, and that will be the end of THAT story.

If you plan to travel to Roseburg tomorrow, here is the best advice from a freedom-loving patriot: Stay home. Don't loan your car to anyone to travel there, either. We patriots do have a mission which might eventually result in our defending our Constitution by force of arms.

Roseburg is not that mission. Oath Keepers may not be that militia, either. This could easily be their "bridge too far".