Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Event horizon change

The Event Horizon for efforts to retain the Second Amendment against the relentless efforts of the political left to emasculate or remove it has changed.

I know of no better example than brilliant gun writer Oleg Volk's blog.

Read the last (summary) paragraph in this post (the final sentence will suffice):

"The opium pipe dreams of the “restoration of the Republic” through another revolution are best left for those who don’t much value a connection to reality."

Now, fast forward almost 6 months to just a few days ago:

"We are at war with those who would disarm us. (Snip) Our chances of fighting back effectively diminish with every concession we make."

Yep, getting into a fight for your survival changes your event horizon. We're not in a shooting war just yet, but the chance that somewhere in the USA, a shooting war will soon break out is getting better by the day. I'm fairly sure that every day, POTUS Obama calmly re-evaluates his chances of removing the threat to his agenda that is the Second Amendment, and so far, he has doubled down against his Constitution at every evaluation of this fight's worth to him and the Left. I analyze the fight he's bringing to eliminate the Second Amendment as an indication of his plans, and the fight that defenders of the Constitution such as myself are bringing every day as an indication of our countervailing resolve. In no previous attack on the Second Amendment has the Left stayed in the fight this long, nor have they previously coalesced around the fierce determination they now demonstrate to end our enumerated freedoms and give their Leftist President a carte-blanche to convert the USA to a dictatorship of the Left.

The Left hasn't blinked, and it doesn't look likely that they will, because the attack is being carried not only by the Feds, but also by every Democratic Party operative in every Statehouse across the land. The particular objective common to the fight is to gut the Second by restricting the right to own and carry militia-capable weapons. That is the common thread of the Federal and State/local efforts by the Left.

What is the next "double-down tactic" when the Left gets stalled in the Congress? I have no doubt in my mind that some sort of event will "happen" that POTUS Obama will use as a lever to grant himself extraordinary, un-Constitutional power, and suspend the Bill of Rights, in total, or maybe just the First and Second Amendments during the "emergency".

My best guess for this "triggering event"? The North Koreans will shoot some missiles next week, and our forces will say that they appeared to be not tests, but hostile shots, and we will fire on their missiles, killing at least one of them. We will then be in a shooting war with the Norks, and the POTUS will declare himself a wartime prexy and present "evidence" of Nork "infiltration" of the USA, and list his suspension of the Bill of Rights. The aggression of the Norks will never affect the mainland USA, but the suspension of the Bill of Rights will happen anyway.

Original Intent & Meaning of the 2A

I guess we'll have to call this a "Frightful Friday" post, because it's going to scare plenty of gun owners and ALL those opposed to the Second Amendment.

Via the Sage Rat out in the Idaho panhandle, this tidbit. Pay attention to the verbiage in the bid proposal:

"DHS and its components have a requirement for a 5.56x45mm NATO, select-fire firearm suitable for personal defense use in close quarters and / or when maximum concealment is required."

The last five words in there describe a machine pistol, not an M-16, or even an M-4 with it's slightly shorter barrel. To get there with an M-4, you would have to have a folding, not a collapsible, stock. The idea is for slinging a machine pistol under a coat or carrying it slung in an automobile for instant deployment, or urban combat. The weapon will definitely NOT be pistol-caliber, though, as the bid calls for one caliber only, 5.56 NATO, the current US military rifle caliber. Presumably, these weapons will have to take NATO-STANAG (M-4) magazines, also.

How more effectively can the Federal Government demonstrate it's excessive zeal and quest for absolute power than by buying seven thousand schmeissers (original German word for a machine pistol) so it's Federal Police can out-gun lawfully-armed citizens and even those citizens' community police forces? Who else is there to be out-gunned? Don't forget that the TSA was sold to us as a "civilian" protection force for the Nation's airports after 9-11. We accepted them in that role gratefully, because they were relieving our National Guard sons and fathers of that duty. Since then, the DHS has ballooned the TSA into a definite National Police Force, except it is "police" on steroids. With the computer files and power of the Federal Government, and an unlimited budget, so it would seem, they have marched into the big cities and small towns, taking whatever policing assignments suit their whim. In Portland, we opened a new Light Rail transit line three years ago, and DHS decided that they would have the TSA be the Transit Police for that. They have appeared all over the 4-line inter-urban  rail system since then, and they are but ONE uniformed Federal arm of the DHS security apparat. Several years ago, they appeared at the Rose Festival, a large civic affair held every June in Portland. Despite State Laws permitting boaters to be armed aboard their pleasure-boats, the DHS and Coast Guard (a subsidiary of the DHS) suspended the Second Amendment on the two big local rivers, and effectively blocked navigation on them for 5 days.

We started out trying to protect ourselves from Jihadi terrorists, but the outfit we gave the job to has, without discussion, turned itself into the Stasi that any cold-war Eastern European dictator would have appreciated and envied.

How more effectively could the absolute NEED for the Second Amendment's ORIGINAL meaning be demonstrated than by DHS' acquisition of such an arsenal? Don't forget that they've also ordered 2,500+ MRAP armored personnel carriers, too.