Separation | Ol’ Remus & The Woodpile Report for 2/26/13

DC has always been distant from the people. Apart from the IRS and the draft, they were “the other” we read about in the papers, running gangsters and spies to ground, getting the interstate built, fighting wars and generally looking out for the Little Guy. We believed they were the Big Picture People doing things on the largest scale on behalf of all who worked hard, lived responsibly and stayed right with the law. DC was the captain and crew of our mighty ship, alert and sure, cutting cleanly through heavy seas and turgid morass alike, while their grateful passengers shuddered at the hardship and horrors beyond the delights of the endless buffet on the promenade deck. Continue reading

The Right Way to Combat Gun Violence | Reason.com

The Right Way to Combat Gun Violence:  Most gun control ideas are irrelevant or impossible.  Steve Chapman | February 25, 2013

Public policy is a lot like math: No matter what the problem, the wrong answers are far more numerous than the right ones. This is particularly true on the subject of mass shootings and other firearms violence, which have stimulated a new fervor for barking up the wrong tree.

Many liberals think the answer to mass shootings and street crime lies in stricter gun regulation: banning “assault weapons,” limiting the capacity of magazines or, in their unrestrained moments, adopting ultra-stringent laws like those in Britain or Australia.

But most of these ideas are irrelevant or impossible. Even if the Second Amendment didn’t prevent it, Americans would never stand for a near-total ban on ownership of semiautomatic weapons, a la Australia, or of handguns, as in Britain. You might as well expect Nebraska to build 300 miles of oceanfront beaches. Continue reading

Some NJ bills could cancel all NJ Firearms ID cards and mandate police turn-in or face felony charges | Evan Nappen via ANJRPC

By Evan F. Nappen, Attorney at Law (Exclusive to ANJRPC)

Out of the 23 bills recently filed in New Jersey, three dealing with mental health evaluations as a condition of issuance of FID cards contain potential severe unintended consequences that could invalidate every FID card in the state. They are A3688 (sponsors: Mainor and Jimenez), A3667 (sponsors: Cryan, O’Donnell, and Jasey) and A3676 (sponsor: Jimenez.)  All three of these bills require a mental health evaluation approved by the Superintendent of State police as a condition for issuance of a New Jersey Firearms Purchaser ID card under N.J.S. 2C:58-3c. Failure to do so is explicitly a “disability” under N.J.S. 2C:58-3c

A3676 also requires a privacy invading in-home inspection as a condition for issuance of an FID card, and A3688 requires submission of a list of household members with mental illness to the police to receive an FID card. Failure to obey these requirements are also explicitly “disabilities” under N.J.S. 2C:58-3c.

New Jersey law provides that an FID card is void if the holder becomes subject to a “disability.” Accordingly, if these bills take effect, ALL persons already holding an FID card who have not had the home inspection, psychological evaluation, or provided the list of household members (and thereby overcome the “disabilities” imposed by the legislation) MUST TURN IN their Firearms ID card to the Police. The turn in must be done within 5 days by law or face prosecution for 4th Degree Crime (Felony -18 months prison time.)   TAKE OUT YOUR OWN FID AND READ THE WARNING ON THE BACK… Continue reading

Feinstein to Introduce Updated Assault Weapons Bill in New Congress |Volokh Conspiracy

… So reports a press release from last week; note these details:

A Justice Department study found the Assault Weapons Ban was responsible for a 6.7 percent decline in total gun murders. However, since the 2004 expiration of the bill, assault weapons have been used in at least 459 incidents, resulting in 385 deaths and 455 injuries.

Three thoughts:

1. The study that Sen. Feinstein is apparently referring to did seem to find that states in which an assault weapon ban was first introduced (but that lacked certain other confounding factors) “were 6.7 percent below the projection” of what the gun murder rate would be without the assault weapons ban. But in the very next sentence, the study says, “Random, year-to-year fluctuations could not be ruled out as an explanation of the 6.7-percent drop,” and later says, “The public safety benefits of the 1994 ban have not yet been demonstrated.” Continue reading

The Perfect Prison | Sultan Knish

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…With a big city politician in the White House, for the first time in a long time, the progressive impulse to extend that total net of control over everything and everyone seems to have come together. The old urban muckrakers became sociologists and community activists and then community organizers all over again in the great circle of rich kid busybodying. They are still looking for the worst possible examples of human behavior to justify total crackdowns on everything and everyone… via Sultan Knish

Purchased opinion alert: “Restricting High-Risk Individuals From Owning Guns Saves Lives” | Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy

This report was released by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, more specifically from the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research that NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg funded to the tune of $107,000,000 around 2001 (see here and here).  The article explains a study (that I have not yet read in the original form) that codifies gun restrictions as responsive to a public health threat.  The embedded assumptions and unchallenged premises are obvious and many.  Just goes to show that it takes real money to buy the best-branded and biggest-named dispassionate, unbiased acdemic opinions.

Beyond the “public health” meme, you will recall that this year was allso the one in which the false hazard of bullet lead as an environmental plague was struck down.  I also recall that bullets were blamed for the Utah wildfires this summer.  Make no mistake about it, these lily livered anti-gun trolls will try every door and window in thier quest to invade the house of your autonomy, empowerment and 2nd amendment rights.

Grab a barf bag.  GE.

On July 20, a gunman in Aurora, Colorado, used an assault rifle to murder 12 people and wound 58 others. Although this was one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history, all mass shootings account for a small percentage of gun violence that occurs in the U.S. every day. In the past 100 days since the Aurora shooting, an estimated 3,035 Americans have died as a result of gun violence.

Credit: HuffPo Continue reading

GE Rant: Sen. Bob Menedez’ (D-NJ) OpEd arguing why New Jersey’s unconstituional gun laws need to go national | APP

GE Rant Warning (long):  I am loathe, loathe to wade into the morass of the 2nd Amendment discussion because so many of you are smarter and more well informed than I.  But as the top of my head is about to come off, I will keep this brief and – likely – unintelligible.

In my opinion Senators Mendenez, Lautenberg, Schumer and their ilk are morally bankrupt,  deluded or simple.  These men are career pols, public parasites and – at heart – each is a collectivist and authoritarian in my view.  They value and defend only their own life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, yours and mine is a problem to be managed for the ‘common good.’

Schumer may, from time to time, visit his wife Iris Weinshall for lunch in the Bronx (she’s on CUNY’s public teat. Tt’s a family thing)  … but we are assured he is driven only to the good section. Lautenberg leaves New Jersey spends his weekends and summers in Martha’s Vineyard where – to the best of my knowledge – the Crips and MS-13 have yet to gain a foothold.  Menendez seems to have his staffers writing disjunct, illogical falsehoods about his states gun control laws, while he and his security detail are likely off on a summer trip sponsored by the AFL-CIO or the Bankers Association. Menendez opines:

It could have happened here in New Jersey. We knew this as we learned of the horrible gun violence that erupted in Aurora, Colo., July 20. Continue reading

URGENT: Obama Will Sign Gun Control / UN Arms Trade Treaty on July 27 2012 | Dick Morris

Obama Contributor, Who Helped Enact Assault-Weapons Ban, Ran ‘Fast and Furious’ | CNSNews.com

napolitano AZ
Dennis K. Burke, a lawyer for the Democrats was on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1990s. He was a key behind the enactment of the 1994 assault-weapons ban.

CNSNews.com – Dennis K. Burke, who as a lawyer for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1990s was a key player behind the enactment of the 1994 assault-weapons ban, and who then went on to become Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano’s chief of staff, and a contributor to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential primary campaign, and then a member of Obama’s transition team focusing on border-enforcement issues, ended up in the Obama administration as the U.S. attorney in Arizona responsible for overseeing Operation Fast and Furious.

When Obama nominated Burke to be U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, Burke told the Arizona Capitol Times he believed he understood what the president and his attorney general wanted him to do.  “There’s clearly been direction provided already by President Obama and Attorney General Holder as to what they want to be doing, and this is an office that is at the center of the issues of border enforcement,” said Burke…. via CNSNews.com

The Nuclear Bible: A false-flag nuclear conspiracy | David Chase Taylor

As readers of this blog may have figured out, I don’t go in much for open-ended-autocorrelative-conspiracy-theories presented as fact.  At best these sorts of things are allegations, hypotheses or possibilities.  That said, David Chase Taylor deserves to be parroted if for no other reason than for the work he has done in piecing together a hypothesis of false-flag / nuclear terrorism – something I DO believe we are likely to see in the near future. GE.

On February 1, 2011, Julian Assange of Wikileaks revealed to the world via leaked classified diplomatic documents that Al-Qaida was on the brink of using a nuclear bomb and that the West was on the verge of a “Nuclear 9/11”. What the diplomatic documents failed to mention was actual target, date and location of the upcoming nuclear terror attack… go here and bring a cup of coffee and an open mind

Fast and Furious Falling Apart | American Thinker

When BATF agents first blew the whistle on what is now known as Operation Fast and Furious, the rationale offered by DoJ for such an evidently foolish operation was that it was designed to allow BATF to track and prosecute the leaders of the Mexican drug cartels.  As more information surfaced from the Mexican government and the BATF’s Mexican bureau chief specifying that none of them knew anything of this operation, many of us who were paying a bit closer attention to the case immediately smelled the first foul scent of corruption. Continue reading

Obama Seeks US Congressional Ratification of UN Global Gun Control Treaty (Int’l Arms Control Treaty – IACT) | Prison Planet

Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State has announced that the Obama administration is working with the United Nations (UN) to approve, through the US Congress, the Small Arms Treaty (SAT). Continue reading

5 Things the TSA Doesn’t Want You to See | Sott.net

… One Freedom to Travel member, who also happens to be a tenured mathematics professor, applied something called Bayes Rule and the concept of Base Rate Fallacy to the TSA’s behavior-detection methods… It revealed that even if TSA’s current screening practices were 100 percent effective, only one in 5 million flagged “high risk” passengers would be a terrorist.

“The experience to date is 50,000 false positives and 16 known terrorists not flagged,” says Thomson. “No known terrorists have ever been flagged….” via  Sott.net.

Why does the military seem to be preparing for urban warfare in the United States? | ActivistPost

FEMA Camps infowars alex jones Recently, I published an article covering the January 22-26 multi-agency exercises being conducted in the Los Angeles area.

As I outlined in the article, this is in fact part of a broader trend of joint military-police drills (which often include other agencies, hence the “multi-agency” label) that have been occurring across the United States.

It seems hard to ignore the fact that the armed forces of the United States are training for urban warfare, not urban warfare in the Middle East, but instead here in our own nation. via Activist Post

also see here:  LAX FEMA Concentration Camp and Rendition Site Confirmed originally by Alex Jones and Infowars

and let’s not forget about all of those dangerous veterans that we have to be afraid of too: see Kevin Hayden’s take on an article claiming that “Police Get Help With Confronting Veterans”  (see my post here)

New York City -1 US Constitution-0 NYC profits from seizures of legal guns – National Homeland Security | Examiner.com

The case, New York against Mark Meckler, Tea Party Patriots co-founder; The charge, C Violent Felony of Possession of a Firearm with Intent to Use; The reality, Meckler was in-transit at LaGuardia Airport and declared his fully-licensed, unloaded weapon that was stored in a TSA-approved locked case located in his luggage; The result, jail and a fine.

Meckler describes his ordeal as nothing short of a nightmare. “On December 15, I requested a firearms declaration form from the ticket agent. It was my intent to declare and check my unloaded firearm. I have a valid concealed carry permit for it issued in California.”  via Examiner.com

Your Right to Defend Against Unlawful Arrest and Excessive Force | Truth is Treason

“Citizens may resist unlawful arrest to the point of taking an arresting officer’s life if necessary.” Plummer v. State, 136 Ind. 306. ‘

This premise was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case: John Bad Elk v. U.S., 177 U.S. 529. The Court stated: “Where the officer is killed in the course of the disorder which naturally accompanies an attempted arrest that is resisted, the law looks with very different eyes upon the transaction, when the officer had the right to make the arrest, from what it does if the officer had no right. What may be murder in the first case might be nothing more than manslaughter in the other, or the facts might show that no offense had been committed…” go here at Truth is Treason.

“Dangerous” Microstamping Bill Would Ban Guns in New York | NSSF

For the fourth year in a row, anti-gun legislators from New York City have introduced firearms microstamping legislation Assembly Bill 1157b that would result in banning firearms in the Empire State.  Microstamping is a patented process that micro-laser engraves the firearm’s make, model and serial number on the tip of the gun’s firing pin so that, in theory, it imprints the information on discharged cartridge cases.  If microstamping were to become law, firearms manufacturers would be forced to employ this patented, sole-sourced concept that independent studies, including those from the National Academy of Sciences and the University of California at Davis, found to be flawed and easily defeated by criminals… the concept of microstamping is unreliable and does not function as the patent holder claims. That study noted that microstamping can be easily defeated in mere seconds using common household tools and criminals could simply switch engraved firing pins for readily available unmarked spare parts, thereby circumventing the process.

via “Dangerous” Microstamping Bill Would Ban Guns in New York.

President Obama’s Anti-Gun Agenda Shows No Sign Of Stopping | Fox News

President Obama keeps pushing for gun control.

“I just want you to know that we are working on [gun control].  We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar,” President Obama told Sarah Brady, the former president of the Brady Campaign, this past spring.

His push as been quiet but relentless.

Just this past week Obama signaled that he was going to just ignore two new parts of the 2012 Omnibus Spending bill. Although he signed the spending bill into law, he simultaneously issued a so-called “signing statement,” a note that presidents have started attaching to legislation stating how they interpret the law they are signing or whether they believe part of it is unconstitutional.

via President Obama’s Anti-Gun Agenda Shows No Sign Of Stopping | Fox News.

We’ve Crossed the Rubicon | Whiskey & Gunpowder

Do you suppose cows have any idea what’s coming as they’re marched down the chute? Or do they stare with bovine indifference at the tail and hind quarters in front of them, until they’re suddenly — and very briefly — startled by the man with the nail gun?

Perhaps Americans will — likewise too late — ask themselves what happened in the very near future. Perhaps just after the midnight knock comes and they are taken away into the night.  It is not an exaggeration.

Go here re NDAA via We’ve Crossed the Rubicon at Wiskey & Gunpowder

Gun Permit Holders Substantially More Law Abiding| CoyoteBlog

“The other day, the New York Times published a story with data that demonstrates that gun permit holders in North Carolina are 20x less likely to commit a felony than the average American [not entirely sure the math is right here, but… “via Coyote Blog – Gun Permit Holders Substantially More Law Abiding.

To which one brilliant commenter (one Mr.I Got Bupkis, Don’t Tread On Me) posted this gem regarding the intent of the 2nd amendment: Continue reading

Inside President Obama’s War On The Fast & Furious Whistleblowers | Forbes

…No one at DOJ is known to have been held accountable for this attack on Dodson. Meanwhile, the whistleblowers who blew the top off Fast and Furious are paying the price.

  • Agent John Dodson, after nearly a year of harassment, including being given menial assignments and being barred from areas of the ATF building in Phoenix, is in the process of trying to sell his home in Arizona so he can transfer to South Carolina.
  • Agent Larry Alt transferred to Florida. He still has unresolved legal claims against the ATF.
  • Agent Pete Forcelli was demoted to a desk job after he testified before Congress. He has requested an internal investigation to address retaliation targeting him.
  • Agent James Casa took a transfer to Florida.
  • Agent Carlos Canino, who was a deputy attache in Mexico City, was moved to Tucson.

Meanwhile the officials who went along with the operation and its subsequent cover up have mostly been rewarded.

  • Former Acting ATF Chief Ken Melson, after refusing to be a scapegoat for this operation, became an adviser in the Office of Legal Affairs in Washington, D.C.
  • Acting Deputy Director Billy Hoover is now the special agent in charge of the D.C. office.
  • Deputy Director for Field Operations William McMahon—he’d received detailed briefings Fast and Furious—is now at the ATF’s Office of Internal Affairs.
  • Former Special Agent in Charge of Phoenix William Newell—he oversaw Fast and Furious and lied by saying guns hadn’t been allowed to go south of the border—is now at the Office of Management in Washington, D.C.
  • Phoenix Deputy Chief George Gillette is now in to Washington, D.C., as ATF’s liaison to the U.S. Marshal’s Service.
  • ATF Group Supervisor David Voth—he managed Fast and Furious out of the Phoenix office—is now in a management position in Washington, D.C.
  • Agent Hope McCallister—she had management duties on the team that ran Fast and Furious—was given a “Lifesaving Award” after it came to light she’d ordered agents to stop tailing suspects who the ATF had allowed to buy guns.

via Inside President Obama’s War On The Fast & Furious Whistleblowers – Forbes.

Documents: ATF used “Fast and Furious” to make the case for gun regulations | CBS News

doj batfe batf guns

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ATF discussed using their covert operation “Fast and Furious” to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales.

In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the “big fish.” But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called “gunwalking,” and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

via Documents: ATF used “Fast and Furious” to make the case for gun regulations – CBS News Investigates – CBS News.

Just As We Suspected, The Fast And Furious Program Was A Gun-Control Plot After All – Investors.com

” … As we observed in June, the way Fast and Furious — the government’s gun-running operation that resulted in the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry — was conducted made no sense unless its intent was to facilitate violence with U.S. weapons in the interests of pursuing the administration’s gun-control agenda.

via Just As We Suspected, The Fast And Furious Program Was A Gun-Control Plot After All – Investors.com

and see here: Gunwalker Goes ‘Legal’: Obama Admin Massively Increased Gun Sales to Mexican Military

and here: See, I Told You So: E-Mails Show Fast and Furious was Vehicle for Gun Control (Rush Limbaugh)

Wake Up America – a look at the lessons of firearms confiscation in UK and Australia | YouTube

via Sharon32518 YouTube Channel

Holder: Blame Fast and Furious on Someone Else | NRA-ILA

Barf alert:

During the committee’s hearings on Justice Department oversight, Holder also blamed the on-going inquiry into Fast and Furious on Republican politics. He refused to apologize to the family of murdered U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, beside whose lifeless body one, and perhaps two, guns walked by Fast and Furious were found. In another effort to protect the Obama Administration against criticism, Holder suggested that Agent Terry’s murder shouldn’t be blamed on Fast and Furious in the first place. And he faulted the House of Representatives for voting to withhold federal funds from any effort to implement the BATFE’s requirement that firearm dealers in the southwest border states report sales of two or more detachable-magazine semi-automatic rifles of greater than .22 caliber.  via NRA-ILA :: Holder: Blame Fast and Furious on Someone Else.

There you have it:  BATFE handing guns to criminal sociopaths was not the problem here, it was instead the Republicans failing to fund the regulation requiring tracking of the MAGAZINES that were clicked into the guns BATFE handed out.

Got it.

I think I just had an aneurism…