JPFO’s been publishing some terrific articles lately, but this stands out even in that stand-out crowd.
If you get as much out of these writings as I do, please donate to or join JPFO. And don’t forget that every product in the JPFO store is 25 percent off through Thursday.
NFI on my part, except that I want to keep JPFO going strong so it can continue to have people like Nicki Kenyon, Kurt Hofmann, David Codrea … and moi write for it. And because JPFO is a unique voice in the gun-rights world.
Everything — everything! (except memberships) — is 25 percent off at the JPFO store through Thursday. And even with memberships, there’s an ongoing 25th-anniversary special.
Much good stuff. Prices low enough to enable you to share many items with friends. Books. DVDs. Targets. Bumper Stickers. Those wonderful, EZ-read Gran’pa Jack booklets. Tee shirts & hats. More Izula knives!
I wish I’d thought of this line myself, but I’ll steal it from David Codrea, who headlined his post about the big sale at Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership with, “Have we got a deal for you!” :-)
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And speaking of David, his latest article at JPFO is a real headshaker.
“What Would Happen if ‘Battle of Athens’ Round Two Ever Becomes Necessary?”
Darned good question on general princples. But especially pertinent for the people of McMinn County, Tennessee, whose fathers and grandfathers won the original Battle of Athens. So, folks, why are you now sitting back as your local government gears up to wage war on you?
The pink police state. How the country becomes more authoritarian and rule-bound at the same time some personal behaviors become more “allowed.”
Another scientific study that proves what’s blatantly obvious to dog people: dogs get jealous. (HRH Princess Ava Prettypaws has spent her whole life trying to insert herself between me and any other critter I ever pay attention to.)
Aw, do poo widdle senator. Him suffering so much him dust had to plagiarize. Him dust couldn’t help him widdle self. Yeah. I’m sure “mistakes were made,” too, and he never intended to “give the appearance of wrongdoing.”
You may have heard that Maryland-based Beretta, which had planned to expand into Tennessee, decided instead to move all its manufacturing there after Maryland passed bad gun laws. Better than that, even. In looking for a new location, Beretta explicitly rejected West Virginia because of Joe Manchin.
It’s time for conservatives to stop defending the police. Actually, it’s way, way, way past time. But the article is still a good beginning. (H/T Sipsey Street)
Sometimes early birds are too early. But ohboy do I understand wanting to “pick up the bucket” just to cross it off the to-do list.
That was a monster body blow Obamacare took yesterday. Not likely to be fatal, though we can hope.
I don’t know who did it or why. But the elaborate white-flag operation atop the Brooklyn Bridge is sure proof that monkeywrenching is alive and well even in the age of omni-surveillance.
I go on at great length about seventeenth-century England. But trust me, it’s relevant. Even interesting. And it’s got to do with how we came by our gun rights and why we’ll keep them if we’re wise and worthy.
Honesty is the best policy will screw up your life. When what you’re being honest about is firearms. Powerfully sad article from Nicki Kenyon at JPFO.
The above is also an example of what can happen when you entrust government with your rights. So is this. Activist, denied “shall-issue” carry permit, needs help fighting back. (H/T MWD)
Target security officer spots shoplifter. Takes standard action. Turns out shoplifter is a cop. Guess who gets fired?
Carjacker forces way into vehicle with gun. Intended victim grabs it and shoots him. (This is also a case of another carjacker flummoxed by a stick shift. Gadzooks, you’d think if you’re going to steal vehicles you’d at least learn to drive them.) (H/T New Jovian Thunderbolt)
The curious case of passive voice in reports of police shootings. Radley Balko says what has long needed saying.
Former cop confirms what the Living Freedom Collective said in Rats!, the anti-snitch book.
NOTE: The following document was found in the ruins of the Mount Weather complex in the year C.E. 2715 and has been in the keeping of the staff of the Interglobal History Museum since then. Although our scholars and scientists are still analyzing this material, it is believed to date from the era of Malia Rodham-Bloomberg (reigned C.E. 2044-2067) or her successor Mitt Kennedy Bush (reigned C.E. 2067-?).
Below is our translation.
…..
REPORT TO THE NATION ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF GUN CONTROL
By the Blue-Ribbon Panel on the Current Crisis
BACKGROUND: Following the Sunnyside Nursery School Massacre and similar disasters, Americans in the mid decades of the twenty-first century realized that “NO GUNS” signs and similarly stringent security measures were no longer sufficient to totally eliminate deadly violence from society.
Although the gun-rights movement had experienced decades of successes, Americans finally rose up and demanded sweeping reforms. Some notable pacifists called for the slaughter of all gun owners and the torture of any politicians perceived to be pro gun. Police chiefs threatened to have their officers shoot any armed person on sight. The nation was in crisis.
With Congress in its 23rd consecutive year of disarray, the president moved to calm the fury with a unilateral series of moderate but firm measures. The president issued a comprehensive series of Executive Orders targeting firearms and their owners.
It has been five years since these Orders took effect. We, the members of this impartial Blue-Ribbon Panel, are now charged with analyzing their effectiveness and making recommendations …
Since the “dispatch” contains only what I was able to come up with in a few hours, feel free to make your own additions and corrections to the Blue-Ribbon report in comments.
On Monday I did something I shouldn’t have. It’s been gnawing at me all week.
Monday morning, first thing after booting up my computer and before I even had a sip of tea, I clicked on a link. Yes, the same thing most of us do hundreds, if not thousands, of times per week. You’d think by now the brain would be numbed to any creepiness that might be hiding behind any link. But no.
This particular link was to an anti-gun thread on a forum I used to (until that moment) visit daily. The forum generally has nothing to do with politics, but when political discussions do arise, they can get … heated. I know that. Most of the politically engaged people on the site are also liberal or progressive or whatever they’re calling themselves these days. I know that, too. I also know that there are a handful of people on that site who, when the subject is guns, are foaming-at-the-mouth rabid. Normally I stay away, but I noticed that the most recent post in that thread was by somebody I respect. He’s not pro-gun, but he’s sensible, moderate, and often witty. So I clicked.
My eye strayed to the post right above that one. It was that post that blighted my day and much of my week.
I won’t quote it here lest it mess up your Friday, but basically, in two short paragraphs, it contained so much prejudice, ignorance, and downright irrational loathing that I was stunned. The majority of gun owners are murderers. They’re killing all the rest of us. The usual. But this person — who in other contexts has seemed friendly, smart, and reasonable — added that since gun owners are a minority nobody should have to respect their rights, anyway, so whatever the government does to us is okay.
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What got to me, what still gets to me, what has gotten to me before, isn’t the sheer hatred. It isn’t the bigotry. It isn’t the fact that people like this won’t even look at facts, won’t even consider considering an opponent’s point of view. (Although that, too.)
It’s that there are so many people who froth with loathing in the name of “tolerance” or “civility” or “decency.” It’s that there are so many people who view themselves as noble defenders of minorities while wanting to wipe other minorities of the face of the earth. It’s that there are people out there who are ripe to be whipped into a deadly frenzy against some politically chosen “other” — and who don’t know it.
They’re totally unaware. They’re so mindlessly righteous of their cause that they have no grasp of the fact that all of history’s witch-burnings and pogroms and genocides have been enabled by minds functioning exactly like theirs.
It’s not the ignorance and bigotry that are the worst of it (though that, too). It’s their total absence of self-awareness.
Liberals aren’t the only ones prone to this, of course. Millions of “patriots” have marched off to slaughter, totally unaware of how they’ve been manipulated into feeling what someone else wants them to feel. During the Cold War, there were plenty of “conservatives” who were so rabidly anti-Communist that they’d have turned the U.S. into a Soviet-style police state to “protect” us from those monstrous, villainous Commies (that they themselves so came to resemble). Religious fanatics everywhere and at all times have been stirred into handy political manias, having no idea that their quest to make the world a better place by eliminating “heretics” or “infidels” would only bring catastrophe. (Oh yes, and bring profit and power to the already powerful.)
And none of them see how much alike they are. That spittle-flecked hoplophobe who scared me so much on Monday has no idea how much he’s like the “good German” who believed that political paradise could be obtained, if only the world could be rid of a few million inconvenient Jews and “defectives.” He has no idea how much he’s like the jihad supporters whose eyes gleam as they envision “improving” their world by eliminating Westerners and Western ways.
No, because totally, totally unlike them — and totally, totally unlike us drooling, unreasoning, inferior, downright murdering gun owners — he’s on the side of the angels. So what could possibly go wrong? Just annihilate a few million and …
And so the cycle of hysteria-driven disasters goes on and on and on through all of history.
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I have a JPFO article due today and I plan to write about this. But frankly, beyond talking about being gobsmacked by the depth of self-unawareness I witness in the most rabid hoplophobes, I don’t know what to say.
This week’s video of two pathetic gangsta wannabes trying to rob a jewelry store inspired me to doggerel poetry. Over at JPFO, I celebrate several notable acts of self-defense (and defense of others) from the last several years.
There were so many to choose from the only trouble was winnowing them down.
I thought the Hobby Lobby decision was the right one. I also think the owners of Hobby Lobby appear to be flaming hypocrites on the subject of contraception.
Right from the moment of legalization, Washington state authorities have treated cannabis use with gentle good humor. The latest: a series of ads about things that it’s now legal — but not necessarily smart — to do while stoned.
It might be no surprise the Microsoft security people just broke a chunk of the Internet The surprise (to me at least) is why the fedgov would give one private company control over another private company’s e-turf in the first place.
The way various govs have been treating Uber and Lyft is such a perfect example of the real agenda of government: protect the cartels.
So apparently Chris Christie still thinks he has a shot at running for president. He’s playing pro-gun this week.
