Category Archives: Gun Control

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Daily Broadside | NM Governess Issues Executive Order Banning Open or Concealed Carry for 30 Days, Gets Dragged By Everyone

Brandon, the lying, dog-faced pony soldier who supposedly heads our government, was notably absent from any official 9/11 memorial service yesterday, adding to a long string of deliberate snubs meant to demoralize the country’s patriots who still put their hands over their hearts when our national anthem is sung and tear up at the sight of our flag. Resident Trunalimunumaprzure is merely carrying on the work of destroying what little is left of our national character, pulling it down brick by brick.

It’s not just him; he’s got a lot of help from the commies in positions of power who fake their fealty to the U.S. Constitution until an opportunity to push their power beyond what is lawful comes along.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Friday announced a new public health order that, she said, will prohibit people from carrying firearms, either open or concealed, in Albuquerque and throughout Bernalillo County for the next 30 days, regardless of whether they have a permit.

The order takes effect immediately. It states “no person, other than a law enforcement officer or licensed security officer, shall possess a firearm … either openly or concealed, within cities or counties averaging 1,000 or more violent crimes per 100,000 residents per year since 2021.”

Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, issued an executive order Thursday evening declaring gun violence a public health emergency. During a news conference Friday, she said she expects legal challenges to the new public health order and expressed uncertainty about whether the order would prevail in court.

The order currently applies only to the city of Albuquerque and Bernalillo County, Lujan Grisham said, and can only be enforced not by local authorities but by New Mexico State Police, whose presence in the state’s largest city would be “significant” over the next month.

Remember when conservatives warned that the Covid mandates and lockdowns were simply a dry run for future tyrannical orders? Remember how we were smeared as tinfoil-hat-wearing, conspiracy-mongering, disinformation peddlers?

Well, here you go: gun violence is now a “public health” emergency. Not a “crime surge” or an “increase in violence” but a matter of “public health” in the same way as a pandemic is a “public health” concern.

Defining “gun violence” as a “public health” crisis is like trying to make a twin sheet fit a king-sized mattress. It’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?

Of course, in order to not look like the little dictator she is, she has to also lie about exactly what her role is as governor.

But New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is defending her order, claiming it was necessary to protect “public health,” and besides, her oath to uphold the Constitution was not “absolute.”

“No constitutional right, in my view, including my oath, is intended to be absolute,” she retorted after being asked whether her order violated her oath of office to “uphold the Constitution.”

It’s true there are exceptions to most of our Constitutional rights. We can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater, for example. There’s also the “fighting words doctrine” that makes incitement to violence illegal.

But anyone who claims there are exceptions to their oath needs to be impeached. The words “oath” and “absolute” pretty much go together. And this cretin of a governor is looking to separate them because she’s gotten herself in a heap of trouble.

If someone takes an oath and then later decides that it isn’t “absolute” then the oath is worthless. If someone can determine after the fact that the oath she took really didn’t mean what it said, nor did what she recited mean what it claimed, then you can’t trust the “oath.”

Or do oaths come with exceptions now?

Fortunately, she’s geting flamed for her order. Republicans are calling for her to be impeached.

Republican state Reps. Stefani Lord and John Block announced on Saturday they are calling for the governor to be impeached.

“I am calling on counsel to begin the impeachment process against Governor Grisham,” Lord said. “This is an abhorrent attempt at imposing a radical, progressive agenda on an unwilling populous. Rather than addressing crime at its core, Governor Grisham is restricting the rights of law-abiding gun owners. Even Grisham believes this emergency order won’t prohibit criminals from carrying or using weapons; a basic admission that this will only put New Mexicans in danger as they won’t be able to defend themselves from violent crime.” 

The Bernalillo County Sheriff will not enforce the ban.

In another report, even Democrats are opposing her rogue order.

Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman, a Democrat party leader who was appointed by Ms. Grisham, joined Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller and Police Chief Harold Medina saying they, too, would not enforce the ban. A gun rights group filed a federal lawsuit within 24 hours seeking an immediate court order to block the order from taking effect.

Better yet, dozens protested in Albuquerque, NM by openly carrying their firearms, with one speaker saying, “This will not stand, we will not comply!”

This is good to see because I guarantee that there will be more unlawful attempts from our rulers to force unconstitutional orders on us peasants (that’s exactly how they see us). You have to decide now (with others, ideally) that you will not comply with unlawful demands. If the authorities demand that you wear a mask, let them try to enforce their mandate on millions who decide they’re not going to comply. If they declare that your guns are now banned, tell them molon labe or “come and take.”

Abraham Lincoln once said,

The people — the people — are the rightful masters of both Congresses and courts — not to overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it.

September 16 and 17, 1859 | Notes for Speeches at Columbus and Cincinnati

I daresay that we are also the “rightful masters” of would be tyrants who can’t control crime and decide that forbidding lawfully (and constitutionally) armed citizens from carrying guns will solve the problem.

Why is the knee-jerk reaction of every Democrat Leftist Progressive Marxist (but I repeat myself incessantly) to violate the rights of the law-abiding? Because they can’t admit their “social justice” policies and progressive ideology is the problem.

And that’s why “we the people” must be vigilant and courageous and stand up to these ignorant anti-American extremists.

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Daily Broadside | We’re Witnessing the Use of Unchallenged Institutional Power

It’s Tuesday and I’m back from a little bit of R&R. My thanks to Bruce Gust who filled in for me while I was gone. This is the third year in a row that he’s done that pro bono, and I truly appreciate his contributions. I learned a few things from him about the role that our Founders’ faith played in the days leading up to the Revoltionary War and the role that it played in the early days of our nation. I think some of his meditations can be very helpful in considering how God has guided our country even in its earliest forms (maybe especially in its earliest forms). I’m especially impressed that he’s pulling many of the posts he shared into a book called American Devotional Series: Part One: The Revolutionary War. It’s a great concept and it was Bruce’s gift to give us a sneak peek at his work.

Of course, we’re a long, long way from those “earliest days” of our country. Sometimes it feels like we’re a long, long way from any semblance of faith. I think it’s fair to say that while there still exists a Christian presence in our culture, most of our societal institutions, whether they are political, educational, judicial, medical, technological, business related, scientific or economic, Christianity by and large does not have the cultural influence it once did.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

Big Business: Amazon locks a man out of his account and disrupts the function of his entire smart home system that uses Alexa to communicate with Amazon Echo gadgets.

Earlier this month, Amazon locked a man out of his account, disrupting his extensive smart home system. The suspension was driven by a delivery driver who claimed the man used a racial slur through his automated doorbell system. The only problem is that the man captured the entire interaction on his security system — the communication to the worker was an automated greeting of, “Excuse me, can I help you?”

You can read the linked article but I can save you the step by summarizing. The Amazon delivery driver falsely accused the Amazon customer of using a racial slur. Instead of giving both the driver and the customer the benefit of the doubt and thoroughly investigating, Amazon reacted as though the customer was guilty and punished him for it by essentially locking him out of their services.

Not only is that an inversion of our criminal code that protects the rights of the accused—who is presumed innocent until proven guilty—but it completely ignores a biblical principle that undergirds our system of justice.

Any story sounds true until someone tells the other side and sets the record straight. (Proverbs 18:17, LB)

Also, this is one reason I don’t use lots of “smart home” gadgets. Who wants to voluntarily give any unregulated, unelected, unaccountable organization control of their personal environmental systems? I don’t even like that the natural gas companies can read my meter from the comfort of their offices, much less make decisions at their discretion about whether I can continue to use the services I pay for.

What Amazon did borders on leveraging a social credit system in which they are the arbiters of “good” and “bad” social credit. Who gave them this power? They took it unto themselves.

Political: A suspicious raid on a gun seller in Montana by 20 armed IRS agents supported by members of the ATF.

Tom Van Hoose has owned Highwood Creed Outfitters in Great Falls, Montana for 13 years. As he pulled into work Wednesday morning, twenty heavily armed Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division agents swarmed his store. He tells TTAG that the IRS agents, in full battle rattle, had been mustered from as far away as Denver and Idaho to serve a warrant for his financial records.

He told us the IRS claims that he has under-reported and failed to report millions of dollars of income. Mr. Van Hoose denied that categorically and told us that anyone who knows anything about the gun business knows there’s not a lot of extra revenue in running a retail gun store and range.

Highwood Creek Outfitters was closed down Wednesday while the agents rifled through his records. The IRS CID troops took ten hours to copy the information on his computers and download his point of sale software information. But what Van Hoose says really concerns him is the fact that in addition to his accounting and sales records, the agents confiscated 13 years of 4473 forms and copied his firearm acquisition and disposition book.

Later in the article, the reporter writes,

Anyone who’s ever completed a 4473 form knows there’s no revenue or financial data there. That form is a record of a firearm purchase transaction used to facilitate a NICS background check and potentially trace a gun’s ownership down the road if it’s used in a crime. Gun dealers are required to keep those forms for at least 20 years.

The question then is, why would the IRS want customer transaction information? Van Hoose tells us the 4473 forms were not included on the list of financial records specifically listed on the warrant the IRS agents served him during the raid. Yet they took them anyway.

I’m sure I don’t know if Mr. Van Hoose has done anything illegal, but it doesn’t sound like he thinks he has, and we’re well aware that gun laws and tax collection are obsessions with the federal government.

What a coinkydink.

Remember that this administration asked for—and got—funding for 87,000 more IRS agents and that many of them will be armed. What happened in Montanta is exactly what we have to fear from a fully armed IRS; raids on unsuspecting citizens to intimidate and harass them.

You think you’ve seen branches of the government weaponized? I bet we ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.

There used to be a social contract between we the people and our government. We gave them power and they used that power constitutionally and legally. That contract has been torn up and thrown away by the Marxists because they don’t fear the law anymore and, more to the point, they don’t fear God anymore.

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Daily Broadside | Passings By Edition

Daily Verse | Job 28:28
“And he said to man, ‘The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.'”

Friday’s Reading: 29-31
Saturday’s Reading: 32-34

Friday and the close of another week as we scratch one more mark on the walls of the Indignity Hoosegow whose warden can’t read a complete sentence (much less carry on a coherent conversation with anyone) and whose staff are determined to make even the thin gruel they call food as tasteless and as expensive as possible.

There’s so much going on that it’s impossible to cover it all in anything approaching some kind of depth, not least because the news cycles so fast these days and I only write once per day. As we head into the weekend, here’s some interesting stories that I’d love to write more about, but time doesn’t allow.

In deep-blue Illinois, which holds the dubious distinction of levying the highest state and local tax rates in the U.S. on its residents, they are focusing on the things that matter to voters, such as renaming the Asian carp.

Three guesses why and the first two don’t count.

The renaming is being done for a couple reasons:  Racism, for one, and to make the fish sound more appealing …

… Charlie Wooley, Director of the Great Lakes regional office said they “wanted to move away from any terms that cast Asian culture and people in a negative light.”

You know, now that you mention it, I have heard a lot of Asians carping about the name.

Nah, not really. This is just another example of something that literally no one is complaining about but woke administrators have to do something to get their raise.

I remember when I was younger going to the orange and aqua blue Howard Johnson’s restaurants. Now they’re all gone.

America’s final Howard Johnson’s restaurant — a 7,500-square-foot single-story diner, which had sat off Lake George, NY’s Route 9 for almost 70 years — has closed its doors, ending an era for what was once the nation’s largest restaurant chain. It’s also now for sale — and for a price that won’t break the bank. 

The nostalgia for me comes not from the food but their ubiquitous presence on family road trips.

Here’s a headline I could never imagine reading: Hot air balloon collides with train in Wisconsin.

The balloon struck a northbound Canadian National train. The occupants of the hot air balloon, three adults, suffered injuries in the crash; 2 of them were flown to Froedtert Hospital by Flight for Life. The third person was taken to Froedtert by ambulance. No other injuries were reported.

Apparently the balloon was in distress, as you can see in the picture accompanying the article. Thankfully all of them survived and are recovering at home.

If you have a spare half-million, you could be the next proud owner of a Rare Apple-1 with original components and Woz’s signature going up for auction next week.

Grewal is the founder of The AAPL Collection, one of the largest private collections of vintage Apple products. The collection now has nearly 200 Apple computers, and Grewal wants more people to be able to see these products in person. That’s why the proceeds from the sale of this Apple-1 will be used to take his “Apple museum” to more places.

This particular Apple-1 is even rarer because most of its components are still the originals. More than that, the computer is signed by Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak.

In 2021, Mr. Grewal had the opportunity to meet Steve Wozniak, aka Woz, who autographed the Apple-1. Woz chose to sign the CPU of this particular Apple-1 and was enthusiastic to see one of his creations in such remarkable condition. Only a few Apple-1 computers bear the signature of their creator, and this is the only example known to be signed on its iconic white ceramic 6502 processor.

The computer is expected to go for between $460,000 and $485,000. If you buy it based on reading this blog, my cut is $10,000.

Finally, a word about our American right to keep and bear arms.

Such carnage [Ukraine-Russia conflict] should evoke strong sentiments from any red-blooded American who believes that the defense of liberty from foreign or domestic tyrants is a fundamental human right. Still, many Americans can’t imagine such a scenario occurring here. That is exactly the eventuality, however, that our Founding Fathers had in mind when they enshrined the Second Amendment in our treasured Constitution. In fact, it was considered important enough that it was placed immediately below the bedrock human functions of free exercise of religion, speech, the press and assembly. The Framers knew that, without the protection afforded by the people’s possession of arms, the guarantees of the other rights were mere words on paper.

During the course of my private and professional life, I’ve had the privilege of traveling in at least 30 countries—some near the area now engulfed in war. In each case, the people’s access to firearms was, by way of comparison to my own life experience, restricted significantly or prohibited outright. In time, I concluded that there simply is nowhere else on Earth where the private ownership and use of firearms is exercised as it is here in America.

Have a great weekend.

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Daily Broadside | Hot Takes on Massacres Won’t Change a Thing

Daily Verse | Job 4:15
“A spirit glided past my face, and the hair on my body stood on end.”

Thursday’s Reading: Job 8-10

Thursday and I’m back after a short visit with my mom for another milestone birthday. I hope to be remembered as one of those children who “arise and call her blessed” (Prov. 31:28).

I was in upstate New York during my time away, about an hour away from the Tops grocery store in Buffalo where a white 18-year-old self-described “mild-moderate authoritarian left[y]” shot and killed ten people in a racially-motivated massacre. On my trip home, another massacre occurred, this time in Texas, where an 18-year-old Hispanic, Salvador Ramos, killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.

The two massacres bookend a string of shootings; in a church in California where an Asian man shot and killed one and injured five, and in a Dallas hair salon where a black man shot and injured three Korean Americans. All come just a month after a black man, Frank Robert James, was arrested for shooting and wounding ten people in an attack on a New York City subway train.

I remind you; I only mention their skin color because the Klown Klub in Washington DC is convinced that “white supremacist domestic terror attacks are the number one threat we face, you guys!” and of the five shootings I just mentioned, only one was a white dude—and he wasn’t even of the correct political persuasion. I mean, of course, that he wasn’t a right-wing conservative Trump supporter protesting a stolen election while bitterly clinging to his guns and religion.

These are horrific crimes not only for the loss of life, but the fact that these are innocents—people just going about their daily lives. Particularly heinous is the killing of the children.

Worse still are the absolute hot takes of our political class in the wake of these killings. Progressives waste no time in capitalizing on these calamities because they are, for the most part, heartless trolls who have a political life to juice with outrage. If they can just get in front of the cameras and gnash their teeth with the latest sound bites, it keeps them in the news to advance their political agenda.

Here’s Irish-American Robert Francis O’Rourke, otherwise known as “Beto,” the fake Latinx and failed presidential candidate, storming a press conference held by Texas governor Greg Abbot and other officials as he gives an update on the shooting.

The bodies weren’t even cold yet. I’m sure Beto, who’s currently challenging Abbot for the governorship, thought this stunt would “fire up his base” and he’d be heralded as “speaking truth to power.”

Nah. He’s a disgusting male Karen who steps on the bodies of dead children to score cheap political points.

Then there’s Resident Teleprompter, another fake humanitarian who, to his credit, started with some heartfelt words.

To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. There is a hollowness in your chest. You feel like you are being sucked into it and never going to be able to get out. Suffocating. It is never quite the same. It is a feeling shared by the siblings and the grandparents and the family members of the community that is left behind.

[…]

So tonight, I asked the nation to pray for them and give the parents and siblings the strength in the darkness they feel right now.

But then he raised his voice and began a rant filled with lots of rhetoric and no specifics. He also called on “God’s name” a lot.

“When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in God’s name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?” he said.

Oh good. He’s identified the culprit: the “gun lobby.” And he knows what needs to be done.

Good.

Good.

What are we going to do?

Next, he invoked the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, Santa Fe High School, Oxford High School and other shootings.

“I am sick and tired of it. We have to act.”

Good.

Good.

What are we going to do?

“And don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage. When we passed the assault weapons ban, mass shootings went down. When the law expired, mass shootings tripled.”

Wait. This is a flat-out lie. The “assault weapons ban” of 1994 had no discernible impact on mass shootings. Yes, the number of shootings with so-called “assault weapons” tripled—but only in 2012, eight years after the so-called ban ended. Otherwise, the number of shootings remained essentially the same.

So “don’t tell me” that we should do what you did in 1994—which did nothing.

“What in God’s name do you need an assault weapon for, except to kill someone? Deer aren’t running through the forests with Kevlar vests on, for God’s sake!”

This lame joke was from his “campaign” for resident. He thinks that “assault weapons” are some kind of military-grade guns that are powerful enough to penetrate “Kevlar vests.” The truth is that an “assault weapon,” often (wrongly) called an “assault rifle,” is a semi-automatic rifle that shoots .223 caliber rounds that pack less punch than the .308 caliber rounds used by the M-1 rifle the AR-15 replaced.

“For God’s sake, we have to have the courage to stand up to the industry.”

OK, finally. We’re going to stand up to the “industry.” Great. When? How?

“Most Americans support common sense gun laws.”

Define “common sense gun laws.” Then show me the data.

“These kind of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world. Why?”

Well, in Australia they took everybody’s guns away. In a lot of other countries, citizens are not allowed to possess guns. That might have something to do with it.

Wait. Is that what you’re suggesting?

“Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?”

Who said we’re “willing” to live with it? Why are you blaming us for “letting this happen”?

“Where in God’s name is our backbone to have the courage to stand up to the lobbies [sic]?”

It’s the lobbyists’ fault. I have heard this before.

“It’s time to turn this pain into action … It’s time to act.”

Right. You said that.

“It’s time for those who obstruct or delay or block the common sense gun laws, we need to let you know that we will not forget.”

Is that what time it is?

“We can do so much more. We have to do more.”

So I gather.

What I think I heard was, we need to act. We have to “stand up” to the gun lobby, implement “common sense gun laws” like the failed 1994 assault weapons ban, and we must not forget those who oppose “common sense gun laws.”

Like I said, short on specifics.

Here’s the bottom line: nothing that Brandon or any other politician says or does will “fix” this problem we have because it’s not a “gun” problem.

It’s a heart problem.

“But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.’” — Jesus, Matthew 15:18-20

We were a nation founded on Judeo-Christian values, and our Founding Fathers understood that only a virtuous citizenry would be able to responsibly handle the freedom that our Constitution gave us. As John Adams said,

“We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.“

As I’ve argued before, we are clearly no longer “a moral and religious People.” If Adams was correct, then our Constitution is wholly inadequate to govern us. It will take a return to faith and the virtues of Judeo-Christian values.

Fox News published an article titled, “Does Texas school shooting highlight need for faith, higher purpose in kids’ lives?” It quoted a few Christian faith leaders who answered in the affirmative. Of the quotes, here’s the one that rung most true to me:

Hancock added, “At the heart of the problem is the fact that the majority of the young men that were involved [in shooting incidents such as the one in Uvalde, Texas] do not have an active father at home. It points to something that’s relatively recent in our society: a national boy crisis.

“We are praying that God will be near in this time of pain and loss, that the church will rise up, and that amid tragedy, courageous men of faith will stand in the gap to love, serve and mentor a generation of hurting boys struggling to understand what it means to be a godly man,” added Hancock of Trail Life USA.

As Dana Loesch wrote in a series of tweets:

Not a single politician is asking: 1) How did this murderer get into the school? 2) What security did this school have and how can we protect schools like we protect our concerts, banks, museums? 3) WHERE WERE HIS PARENTS AND THE ADULTS IN HIS LIFE? 4) How did he buy a handgun? 5) Did he pass a background check? 6) No one in his house saw what was going on?

These are the questions asked by people who not only want answers, but solutions.

The “gun lobby” didn’t head his household, the “gun lobby” didn’t neglect to monitor his behavior, the “gun lobby” didn’t neglect to secure the school, the “gun lobby” didn’t leave any doors unlocked, and the “gun lobby” didn’t tell him to murder anyone.

Right.

We have to rebuild a virtuous culture. “Culture is a powerful force for good. When good behavior is normalized and deviant destructive behavior is ostracized, shamed, and marginalized, you get more good behavior.”

The foundation of a virtuous culture is a return to God.

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morning links | 14 Apr 20

IT’S DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN. Joe Biden Promises to ‘Transform This Nation’ in Accepting Bernie’s Endorsement.

“Biden insisted he would beef up America’s social safety net, ‘make sure that health care is made accessible and affordable to every American,’ provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and combat ‘structural racism.’ He blamed that ‘structural racism’ for ‘this godawful situation at which African Americans and Latinos suffer most at the hands of the coronavirus.'”

No. Just no.

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