Straight Case

B.O.H.I.C.A.

Oregon's Gun-Banner In Chief (OGBIC) pukes up a presser to announce (at a gun-free-zone venue) that a new "Gun Safety Agenda" is being promulgated rammed down our throats.

Governor, my guns are perfectly safe already, thank you. I carry at least one every day, and none of mine have ever hurt anyone yet, although with your continuing curtailment of gun freedoms here, and a corresponding expansion of crime and thuggery, the chances of my having to use one of my guns in defense of myself and/or my family increase every day.

As you set your "Agenda", bear in mind what the ultimate purpose of the Second Amendment really is: to allow us to keep and bear arms so as to be able to remove tyrannical governments. 

A different threat, your responses

The events unfolding in San Bernardino show us a different threat. Not an unknown threat, just a different one.

We have been used to seeing various formats of homicidal/suicidal Jihad here: 9-11, the various Jihadi gun attacks since then, etc. All these attacks had one common characteristic: the Muslims involved were all determined to kill members of the Western Civilization, but pretty much stuck to methods which left their shock troops dead with the event. One-way attacks. Don't "pass go", Get your 72 raisins immediately.

With San Berdoo, we have just seen an attack in which the Jihadis had trained and prepared to strike with force and effect, but moved on quickly to, presumably, strike again later. Far from the normal homicide/suicide attack, this is more like revolutionary attack. This resembles what we used to refer to as a "partisan" attack. Similar to the tactics of the French or Yugoslavian partisans who attacked the Nazis during WW2. What we just saw could have been very successful for the Jihadis, and the only reason it wasn't, was better training and discipline/communication on the part of the police authorities.

My purpose here is not to figure out how to defeat this different flavor of Jihad, but to prepare the average citizen to survive it. Methods of defeat for the Muslim Jihad will have to wait for a National Command Authority determined to defeat Islamic Jihad itself, and we don't have such leadership now, we have the opposite. We have political and command leadership determined to NOT face down islamic Jihad instead of the other way around. The effect for John Q. Citizen is that he will probably have to face the shock troops of Jihad alone, possibly with the help of local police.

A personal note: I am trained in various aspects of public safety, and as events unfolded and were reported yesterday in San Berdnardino, I evaluated the events as if they were the result of criminal gang activity, since, to me, the events more resembled the activity of, say, Mexican drug cartels or the criminal gang MS-13 (both very active in San Bernardino), and both are orgs not unwilling to create mass murder to get their point across. I was wrong in that analysis, mostly because I applied the usual standard of homicide/suicide Jihad, then rejected it, and this event did not fit that model.

So, how to prepare?

1. Arm up. The protected citizen will be armed at all times, with handgun(s) within hands' reach at home and away, and a long gun close by as well. You will have to figure out how to conform to "safe storage" laws to accomplish this in your home and in your car (presumably, your "away" long gun stays in the car). At home, I have quick-reaction pistol safes (plural), and the long gun goes back in the big safe when kids are present, so I comply. In the car, I carry on my person as I am permitted to do, and my long gun is a Kel-tec folding rifle with internal lock, carried in a locking gun case, kept in the locked trunk of the vehicle.That complies with local law as well (it would NOT comply in CA or several Eastern states though).
2. Train up. At this point, if you have not already done so, join a local gun club or commercial firearms practice facility. Your preference should be one which has practice facilities for handgun (any caliber), rifle (any caliber) and shotgun. With the exceptions of no 50BMG and no full-auto, my club fits these requirements. You will need to allot sufficient funds for ammo, and/or begin to reload your chosen calibers. You will need to allot sufficient time to practice, probably a minimum of once per month in the training phase, and four times per year with all defense firearms as a maintenance-of-training effort.
3. Smarten up. Apply some common sense as to your selection of events to attend, particularly if you will be responsible for others' safety. Large outdoor events are Jihad targets of opportunity, as are crowded shopping malls. Organized athletic events in arenas and stadia are probably safer to some degree, but the Jihadis wouold love to target one for the kill ratio that they could achieve. Consider applying a sliding scale of risk to your life and it's chosen events. Yeah, that's a bummer, but we are at war, dude! You are probably safest at home, relatively safe out and about in your vehicle, safe enough doing shopping that is NOT done in large, crowded venues at peak predictable times. You are less safe in any public crowd, on mass transportation, at any outdoor event which has been heavily advertised as to attendance prospects. The training and/or dedication of your local policing authority is a factor in your relative safety also. Evaluate it.
4. Vote up. National elections are close at hand. Regardless of your political affiliation, you need to vote for your own safety. Safety is personal, and politicians and political parties which refuse to recognize your personal safety as their Job #1 should NOT get your vote. This is not about flavors of morality, this is about survival. See my note on National Command Authority, above.

Again, we are at war. The war has been brought to these shores by Islam, and it's not going to get "wished away", even though this seems to be the primary "combat strategy" of the current political Administration. YOU are responsible for your OWN safety, so make safety happen for you, NOW!

A final word. Religion. Your personal religious creed should give you the mental strength to survive the mental rigors of mortal combat. It is NOT required for that purpose, but if you hold to a creed, it will pay you to increase your attention to it in these anxious times. Your creed is your business under our Constitution. Your survival is a natural AND Constitutional Right under our system. You MUST consider anyone who attacks you for your creed or attacks your Right to survival as your enemy. Islam is attacking/denying both

The events unfolding in San Bernardino show us a different threat. Not an unknown threat, just a different one.

We have been used to seeing various formats of homicidal/suicidal Jihad here: 9-11, the various Jihadi gun attacks since then, etc. All these attacks had one common characteristic: the Muslims involved were all determined to kill members of the Western Civilization, but pretty much stuck to methods which left their shock troops dead with the event. One-way attacks. Don't "pass go", Get your 72 raisins immediately.

With San Berdoo, we have just seen an attack in which the Jihadis had trained and prepared to strike with force and effect, but moved on quickly to, presumably, strike again later. Far from the normal homicide/suicide attack, this is more like revolutionary attack. This resembles what we used to refer to as a "partisan" attack. Similar to the tactics of the French or Yugoslavian partisans who attacked the Nazis during WW2. What we just saw could have been very successful for the Jihadis, and the only reason it wasn't, was better training and discipline/communication on the part of the police authorities.

My purpose here is not to figure out how to defeat this different flavor of Jihad, but to prepare the average citizen to survive it. Methods of defeat for the Muslim Jihad will have to wait for a National Command Authority determined to defeat Islamic Jihad itself, and we don't have such leadership now, we have the opposite. We have political and command leadership determined to NOT face down islamic Jihad instead of the other way around. The effect for John Q. Citizen is that he will probably have to face the shock troops of Jihad alone, possibly with the help of local police.

A personal note: I am trained in various aspects of public safety, and as events unfolded and were reported yesterday in San Berdnardino, I evaluated the events as if they were the result of criminal gang activity, since, to me, the events more resembled the activity of, say, Mexican drug cartels or the criminal gang MS-13 (both very active in San Bernardino), and both are orgs not unwilling to create mass murder to get their point across. I was wrong in that analysis, mostly because I applied the usual standard of homicide/suicide Jihad, then rejected it, and this event did not fit that model.

So, how to prepare?

1. Arm up. The protected citizen will be armed at all times, with handgun(s) within hands' reach at home and away, and a long gun close by as well. You will have to figure out how to conform to "safe storage" laws to accomplish this in your home and in your car (presumably, your "away" long gun stays in the car). At home, I have quick-reaction pistol safes (plural), and the long gun goes back in the big safe when kids are present, so I comply. In the car, I carry on my person as I am permitted to do, and my long gun is a Kel-tec folding rifle with internal lock, carried in a locking gun case, kept in the locked trunk of the vehicle.That complies with local law as well (it would NOT comply in CA or several Eastern states though).
2. Train up. At this point, if you have not already done so, join a local gun club or commercial firearms practice facility. Your preference should be one which has practice facilities for handgun (any caliber), rifle (any caliber) and shotgun. With the exceptions of no 50BMG and no full-auto, my club fits these requirements. You will need to allot sufficient funds for ammo, and/or begin to reload your chosen calibers. You will need to allot sufficient time to practice, probably a minimum of once per month in the training phase, and four times per year with all defense firearms as a maintenance-of-training effort.
3. Smarten up. Apply some common sense as to your selection of events to attend, particularly if you will be responsible for others' safety. Large outdoor events are Jihad targets of opportunity, as are crowded shopping malls. Organized athletic events in arenas and stadia are probably safer to some degree, but the Jihadis wouold love to target one for the kill ratio that they could achieve. Consider applying a sliding scale of risk to your life and it's chosen events. Yeah, that's a bummer, but we are at war, dude! You are probably safest at home, relatively safe out and about in your vehicle, safe enough doing shopping that is NOT done in large, crowded venues at peak predictable times. You are less safe in any public crowd, on mass transportation, at any outdoor event which has been heavily advertised as to attendance prospects. The training and/or dedication of your local policing authority is a factor in your relative safety also. Evaluate it.
4. Vote up. National elections are close at hand. Regardless of your political affiliation, you need to vote for your own safety. Safety is personal, and politicians and political parties which refuse to recognize your personal safety as their Job #1 should NOT get your vote. This is not about flavors of morality, this is about survival. See my note on National Command Authority, above.

Again, we are at war. The war has been brought to these shores by Islam, and it's not going to get "wished away", even though this seems to be the primary "combat strategy" of the current political Administration. YOU are responsible for your OWN safety, so make safety happen for you, NOW!

A final word. Religion. Your personal religious creed should give you the mental strength to survive the mental rigors of mortal combat. It is NOT required for that purpose, but if you hold to a creed, it will pay you to increase your attention to it in these anxious times. Your creed is your business under our Constitution. Your survival is a natural AND Constitutional Right under our system. You MUST consider anyone who attacks you for your creed or attacks your Right to survival as your enemy. Islam is attacking/denying both

Public money DIRECTLY spent for a gun grab

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.

 

Defending Fallen Veterans

Again!

This is cross-posted from my Rivrdog Blog.

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.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.