Category Archives: statists

With All Due Respect, GRNC Gets It Wrong, Re: Johnston County Commissioner Devan Barbour

jocoboco, rinos, statists

GRNC put out an alert, yesterday, updating members on the results of the meeting I described two days ago here. GRNC seems to think we should thank Devan Barbour for proposing the removal of the portion of the ordinance mentioning firearms. I have to respectfully disagree. The decision had already been made. Word is that one of the commissioners even called into the Morning Rush on WRDU to talk about the ordinance and said that they did decide to remove the firearms portion. Having Devan Barbour, the only one up for re-election, propose removing that section during the meeting was a cynical move to try to placate gun owners so that we would go away.

As I said a year and half ago:

And just so you understand where we stand in this negotiation, let me say this. We have come here because, metaphorically speaking, someone has threatened to cut off our right leg. We have to wonder if the hope was that we would settle for, oh, say, just giving up our left foot. Let me straighten out this potential misperception. We were threatened, metaphorically speaking, with amputation. Our position is that we are changing the starting point of this negotiation. We’ve come, metaphorically speaking, for both legs of those who are proposing this ordinance. And our hope is that everyone leaves with all of their limbs in tact. Metaphorically.

The same applies this time. And as I shouted out during one absurd comment from Attorney David Mills that this was “not about guns,” “Do you think we are stupid?!”

This alert was posted to the NC Gun Owners forum. My response, copied here for convenience:

As has been discussed here, I think, but definitely elsewhere, we owe no such thanks at all to Devan Barbour. He voted in lock step with the other five present commissioners in August on the unmodified ordinance. And the ordinance that passed is still egregious as it is still far too vague and will likely snare residents safely shooting on their own property. What’s ‘unreasonably loud’ for a gunshot? To a d*mn-yankee (I is one, but an *assimilated* one) who is anti-gun, *any* gunshot is unreasonably loud, because, gosh darn it, he shouldn’t be shootin’ guns on his property! It’s scares him due to his lack of familiarity with *American* tradition. And that’s what this is about. These complainers (regardless of what you think of Whitlock) would complain if Whitlock had safe bullet containment and used a suppressor (which, of course, is an extra $500+ for a trust, since our illustrious Sheriff refuses to sign off on the required ATF form). This entire ordinance should have been nixed, period. Barbour made his proposal because he is up for re-election.

It boggles my mind that Mills had the audacity to suggest that there were only a few narrow types of shooting (self-defense, varmint dispatching, etc.) that are covered by the 2nd Amendment. Who the h*ll does he think he is? What makes anyone think that making marksmanship training harder for those who don’t have the money join a range and travel to a range on a regular basis isn’t a violation of the 2nd Amendment. And I don’t even hear any gun rights groups harping on that. It’s not only an infringement, it’s just plain dumb to acknowledge the right to keep and bear arms, but make it potentially criminal to practice without spending a lot of money. It’s a city-boy mentality that thinks you just buy a gun, throw it in your closet or sock drawer and not use it for target practice in your safe, private, backyard range, but only for self defense or varmint dispatching. Where is Mills from, anyhow? Did he grow up in JoCo, or is he from some big city? I’m bettin’ the later. It would also be interesting to see if any remuneration he gets comes from Bloomy’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns, like the staff member in the Mayor’s office in Orlando, FL.

The only real victory we had here, and it is a significant one, is that we got their attention, and if my perception was correct, Barbour, Mims, and Attorney Mills all had tremors in their voices. We scared them, I think. And that is a good and valuable thing. Evidence of a properly functioning government. Almost, anyhow, as they still display stark arrogance (particularly Mims and Mills).

Now, we need to keep the pressure on and a few JoCo gun owners need to attend, EVERY SINGLE MEETING, maybe taking the open comments period at the beginning to propose repealing the noise ordinance altogether. Let them know we are watching them closely. We need to go on the offensive, here, because what do you think will happen when this almost-bill-of-attainder doesn’t work and they can’t get Whitlock to stop under the ordinance? They will come back for more. *Unless* we are constantly badgering them in the other direction. Otherwise we are in react mode which is always imperfect, as we can see from this result.

And in 2014, give them a re-election battle they’ll never forget. We need a plan to have as many people as possible run against them. I don’t know what it takes, but surely we’ve got people on this forum and elsewhere who could help with that.

And now there is word from an anonymous source within the county government that JoCoBoCo “have talked with the community college about forming a public shooting range to ward off the drama that is now before us.” Well, I have a message for the Board: too little, too late. Oh, and the drama? You brought this on yourselves. You think this will make us go away and leave you alone to rule over us the way you see fit? You’ve got another thing coming.

As Knitebane says the response we are now getting wind of is exactly what we should be seeing. The commissioners should be trembling in their boots whenever they even think about mentioning firearm rules.

Elsewhere, I added:

Right now, they need to be babysat. I suggest several of us go to the October meeting with, as a starter issue, a proposal to move all Board of Commissioners and other public board meetings (such as the planning board) to a location where carrying a concealed handgun is not prohibited and/or a proposal to repeal the ban on carrying concealed handguns in county buildings *and* a prohibition on any county agency from instituting their own ban.

If we get the predictable reaction of arrogance from Mims and company, we remind them that this will affect the decisions of many Johnston County citizens on November 6th.

To the Johnston County Board of Commissioners, and Alan Mims and Devan Barbour in particular, I say this: We are not going away. Deal.

Stay Dangerous, My Friends.

Appleseed RBC, 8/26/2012 – 9/3/2012: Summary and an Application – Johnston County, NC Board of Commissioners

appleseed, rinos, statists

I was a bit worn out after the RBC, so I only stayed for one day of the regular Appleseed event on the weekend. I haven’t yet consistently reproduced my Rifleman score, but it’s just going to be some amount of practice to get better at it.

As I said at the start of the RBC, these boot camps are somewhat geared toward those who wish to become instructors. I haven’t made a decision on that, but I was glad to get an inside look into some of the philosophy of Project Appleseed.

One of the main criticisms I’ve heard of Appleseed is the focus on the use of the sling. One thing that few consider that should anything “happen” in this country, there’s a good chance that many of us will be using equipment that are battlefield pickups. There’s probably a better than 75/25 chance of these rifles having slings. On the other hand, a scope might not be standard equipment on a number of them.

One criticism about the sling, however, is probably valid. It’s not that it’s not covered, it’s just that there is not a lot of emphasis on it. They cover three ways of using the sling in the standing position. There’s the loop, the hasty, and the hasty-hasty. If you are transitioning from standing to prone, or standing to sitting, the loop sling is probably the easiest, since it’s the same in all three positions. However, it can take time to set the sling up for the loop. But in a situation where you must take a quick shot, the hasty makes the most sense. So, though the most critical type of situation you could be in is the need to sling up quickly and take a shot, it’s not the easiest to train for that when you are transitioning. I used the loop sling because that’s easiest for transition, especially when you have the quick-release swivels, but what I should have done is practiced more with the hasty sling. Because in stressful situations, we typically fall back to our training.

In addition to the shooting and the shooting instruction, there is also the American heritage that they cover, however briefly, since it is only a week, and only two days for the regular Appleseed shoots. These are rather stark, but inspiring stories of the American Revolution that you might not have been taught in the public schools. I know that I wasn’t, at least. They make a good springboard to do more research yourself. A good start might be David Hackett Fischer’s Paul Revere’s Ride.

They also tell some Dangerous Old Men stories (though it’s not limited to men, but also includes women). One of those events is the difference made by one of General Daniel Morgan’s Riflemen, Timothy Murphy, who (I think after two ranging shots) took an amazing 300 yard shot that felled British General Simon Fraser, affecting the morale of the regulars under his command, having a significant impact on the outcome of the war.

This and a few other stories were told to drive home the point that, yes, sometimes one person can make a difference. You will never know whether what you do will or will not have that kind of effect. It is for that reason, that we should all, if we value our beleaguered republic, do everything we can to preserve it.

Bringing this right home to my back yard is something I’ve kept quiet about (at least here on this blog) up to this point.

A little over year ago, the Johnston County, NC Board of Commissioners tried to do something about those dastardly gun owners shooting on their own property by banning spitballs. The end result of the Orwellian named Good Neighbor Firearms Ordinance was a convoluted, stupidly worded, and unenforceable attempt to solve a non-problem. Or at least a problem that should have been bounced back to the individuals complaining to take civil action, and submit themselves to some discovery that probably would have revealed little evidence that there was any problem other than that they were scared of gunfire due to not being sufficiently accustomed to American traditions. We’ll never know, now, since they decided to badger complicit statists in the Sheriff’s office and on the Board of Commissioners to impose their hoplophobic wills on the entire county.

Well, a few months ago, the Board started making noises (pardon the pun) that they wanted to make some changes, again. This time, they were going to throw out every single protection for people shooting safely on their own property that we had negotiated a year and a half ago. Despite their protestations, they tried to sneak this one by, hoping that gun owners wouldn’t take notice. They almost succeeded. Well, what they passed is still sufficiently vague that it could snag people shooting safely on their own property, but we got the attention of the Board, that’s for sure.

I said they almost succeeded. But why didn’t they get everything they wanted? It was little bit of luck, but also the actions of one man, a friend of mine, Fran, who contacted me when he saw this article in the local paper indicating that the Board had already taken a non-binding (due to one absence) vote on a noise ordinance that would have effectively banned shooting, despite the dishonest lecturing from county attorney David Mills during the Board meeting last night.

When Fran called me, I was a bit discouraged and wondered if it even mattered if we registered our opposition to this ordinance due to the Board’s distinct lack of respect for the citizens of Johnston County. Alan Mims, the chairman, has made it clear that he doesn’t put any stock in those who cut and paste messages from GNRC alerts and send them. As if simply registering our opposition is not enough. And yet he had the gall to claim that there was a silent majority who were for the Good Neighbor Firearms Ordinance in the last kerfuffle.

I chatted with Knitebane about this and he did some digging. After gathering as much info as he could, he contacted Paul Valone of GRNC and from there it was like a brush fire. Valone was on fire and determined that we needed to stop this or it would spread to other counties like a cancer. This nimbys needed to be stopped. Between Knitebane and two others from GRNC, they did their fact checking and crafted the alert that went out. Eventually, the NRA-ILA picked up the story. There was even a Facebook page that led to a petition that garnered 1,700 signatures which was presented to the Board.

At the meeting last night, Alan Mims, Devan Barbour, and county attorney David Mills repeatedly tried to tell us this wasn’t about guns, but only about unreasonable noise. In other words, they were pissing down our backs and telling us it was raining. They lied. Every damn-yankee immigrant to Johnston County, NC (of which I is one, but an assimilated one) who hates guns would complain about guns being unreasonably loud because, dammit, neighbors shouldn’t be shootin’ guns, cuz it scares them. Every single American* I’ve spoken with about this does not have a problem with gunfire precisely because it is core to the very definition of American Liberty.

Another thing on attorney David Mills. He’s a &^#(@)! (Sorry, had to edit that out due to a mixed reading audience ;-)). How dare he presume to explain to us plebes that this would not infringe on our rights, due to a few extremely limited situations where shooting would not be considered a violation. After all, as he said at least twice, he’s trained to analyze these legal matters. What arrogance for him to assume that a few limited situations are all the right to keep and bear arms encompasses. Do any of these so-called pro-gun politicians ever consider that you’d be an idiot to make it harder for people to engage in target practice? Mims tried to imply that 3000 rounds over the course of a few months was excessive. Most who understand the RKBA would say that that’s some slow shootin’, there. And, no, I am not kidding about that. Why would you not want people to practice good marksmanship? This isn’t just about recreation. This is about continuously keeping up our marksmanship skills. One of the number one priorities of the Appleseed Project, by the way.

As Bubba notes, this story is not over. In his post he lays out one of the biggest problems is the Sheriff’s office. Sheriff Bizzell is one of those butheads. “I’m am all for the second amendment, BUT…,” and you can fill in the blank. Always an exception, the elist knows what’s best for you. He refuses to sign off on NFA forms, which are required by the ATF for the acquisition of machine guns, suppressors, and a few other items restricted by the National Firearms Act of 1934. So many other things are required by law to have mufflers, but, yet, our government(s) make in damn near impossible to shoot without making noise.

If our Sheriff, the Commissioners, and their subversive attorney were really not anti-gun, a) the Sheriff would sign off on anyone eligible to get suppressors, and lobby the NC Sheriff’s Association to, in turn, lobby our state legislators and our US Representatives and Senators to make it easier for anyone to get them and b) the Commissioners would either change the venue of their meetings to a place where we can carry our guns, or repeal the ordinance that prohibits carry in county buildings. But they’re nimbys. I.e.: fakers. The gig is up, though, and we’ve got their number. Devan Barbour is up for re-election and he’s the one who proposed striking the section specifically mentioning firearms. Gee, I wonder why.

All three who spoke, Alan Mims, David Mills, and Devan Barbour had very distinct tremors in their voices. As you can sorta see from Bubba’s pictures, there were probably three hundred of us overflowing the meeting room. Between that, the national attention, the petition, the email, the phone calls, the GRNC and NRA involvement, I think we scared them. As well they should be scared. The more, the better. That’s one indication of a properly functioning government:

“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” — Thomas Jefferson

Government officials do not fear the people, enough. If we are to agree with Mr. Jefferson, that needs to change.

The Johnston County, NC Board of Commissioners is now on notice. We will be watching you. There is a plan afoot to keep much closer tabs on any tyranny you may try to impose on us in the future. And watch out in 2014. A sea change is what you might see. We’re all-in for some house cleaning.

So if wasn’t for my friend Fran contacting me, and then me chatting with Knitebane, Knitebane involving GRNC, and the NRA-ILA chiming in, and Dustin Holloman starting the petition, this might have been snuck by unnoticed. One man likely started this brush fire. Thanks, Fran!

Stay Dangerous, My Friends

*By American, I, of course, mean what I describe at the end of this post.

Update: Fixed a few spelling errors. Sorry, Knitebane. 😉

Update 2: Wow, not 17,000 signatures. That would have been awesome. Still 1,700 is pretty dang good. Corrected.

See? The Mask Isn’t Even Slipping; It’s Gone

pissoff, statists

As an update to my previous post, from Joe again, quoting “Kiki”:

Just shoot yourself. The modern man doesn’t need to hunt, he has all he wants and can obtain anything without hunting or any other stupid sick barbaric medieval method. What the fuck do you know about nature? You’re just talking shit to give a “logical” explanation why you hunt, it’s all bullshit ! Cut the crap with the nice, civilized outspoken person, ’cause you’re not ! You deserve to be considered trash, you an hypocrite, people like you don’t need respect, you deserve all the swears in the world because you understand just one law, the fist in the jaw law ! Any anti-hunting or animal right argument isn’t ever good for you, you just know that one thing, that you’re the center of the world and for that you’re nothing,you’re just a waste of oxygen !

The blog post that Joe points to indicates that some of the commenters on this Facebook group are Americans. I beg to differ. They may reside within the same borders, speak the same language, and be allowed to vote in elections (well, yeah, I know that’s not saying much even regarding whether or not someone is living, but I digress), but being American implies adopting certain principles. Principles of the same cloth of our founding generation. These are occupiers within our borders who wish to fundamentally transform us into another socialist hell-hole.

Regarding “Kiki,” above, I don’t know if she is a vegan, but I believe vegans are wrong on principle (and as a side note, they are going to have a much harder time surviving The Big Die Off than meat eaters), but they are the only ones who even come close to having a coherent argument against hunting. They are still wrong, on many levels that I won’t go into at this time, but they are at least consistent. Any non-vegan who complains about hunting, but will eat grocery store bought meat has got to be mentally ill. As Joe points out, it’s as if they think slaughtering practices are somehow more humane than hunting.

And for anyone trying to be civil and actually have an intelligent conversation with them, can you see how pointless it is? Even when we try to engage in civil discourse it’s not taken as such, so why bother? In the end, their aim is still to see us dead. You don’t negotiate with the tyrant. Their arguments deserve only to be mocked.

But all of them, vegans and non-vegans alike, these anti-hunters seem to have a habit these days of revealing their murderous fantasies against humans. No compunction about committing genocidal acts. They need to be defeated, absolutely crushed politically. If they want their collectivist utopias, they can take one way flights to Cuba. I guess the best thing we have going for us is that they, almost to a person, hate guns. So when we win, with the exception of the true believers we can at least be sure that the noise we hear in the background will only be gilded threats. But sure as I know anything, I know this – they will try again, so we will be on guard. This is WAR. We will treat it as such.

Stay Dangerous, My Friends.

QotD: Joe Huffman

pissoff, qotd, statists

In line with my answer of No, Joe, in quoting someone else adds this:

They view the private possession of guns as evil. There is no negotiating with people that “think” like that. If they cannot even discuss the costs of gun control there is no point in even talking with them. They must be politically destroyed.

Several weeks ago I had a private message exchange on fakebook with a relative who is decidedly on the left. The specific discussion was about Monsanto, but that’s not really relevant. This person was lamenting that the two of us used to have lively, friendly discussions about all kinds of topics.

Oh, and before I forget, a little background on what happened. This person had sent a friend request to me some time last year. I knew her position on many things and that she was firmly on the “other” side of probably every issue you could think of. But I reluctantly accepted. After finally getting fed up with her ignoring every single one of my responses to her posts, I “unfriended” her with a note that I didn’t see much point in just letting her broadcast to me, but not being willing to engage in an actual debate. So then, months later, the private discussion started, triggered by a Monsanto post.

One comment she made was to the effect of “why not meet on where we agree and worked together from there?” I told her, much like Billy Beck said, that I will meet her at her premises. And I added this: “You are not going to create Heaven on Earth. And as long as people attempt that, I, believing that they will create Hell on Earth in the process, will be part of the roadblock to those attempts.” And, “You want to support, enhance, and encourage people in the areas you believe they agree on? More power to you. But I will fight you at every turn should you wish to use the power of a government gun in my face to do so.”

I haven’t heard from her since.

My message to the antis, the progressives regressives is this: we will not work with you. We will not compromise. Mass slaughter by government is not an aberration of progressivism, — which is just another name for collectivism, totalitarianism, socialism, communism, fascism, all of them being just slightly different flavors of each other — it is a feature. You have Sowell’s unconstrained view, which we do not hold. There will be no perfecting of mankind on this Earth, no new soviet man, no matter how many of your false messiahs you throw at it. There are surely true believers among you who do not believe they will be here to live in the perfect world they trying to create. And those are the ones we consider the most dangerous, but we consider all of you a mortal threat to human liberty. This is the message of an anti-progressive coalition:

We are not interested in dialogue with you. We are only interested in defeating you, crushing you, politically. We are Americans. As the founding generation envisioned. We don’t know what you are.

Stay Dangerous, My Friends.

How’s “No. Your Move.” for an Argument

frommycolddeadhands, snbi, statists

Ah, yes, as is often the case, those fact checking sites turn out to be statist shills. First there was Snopes (or actually, I think there was one before it, but forgot the name), then Factcheck.org, and now we have someone over at cracked.com seeking a bloody civil war.

In his latest cracked (up) post he brings up four points that freedom lovers bring up during any debate on gun people control.

I’m not going to fisk his entire post. There’s plenty of rebuttal for just about every point he makes all over the ‘net and dead tree letters to the editors.

But the bottom line is, the answer is “No.” As Bob Owens said, We, the supporters of the Constitution, are in the position of strength. So why should we compromise? Show me one time in history an instance when those interested in individual liberty compromised with those who wished to control them and it didn’t benefit those on the side of control and be detrimental to those on the side of liberty.

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

There’s been enough carnage, in the 100s of millions, due to tyrants killing their own innocent countrymen in the 20th century alone (after disarming them, of course), that we simply do not trust you. And never will.

Yes, we’ve figured it out. You are lying through your teeth when you say things like we should license guns they way we license cars. You are a liar.

Cody at Cracked whines about the four most meaningless annoying arguments he hears from pro-gun folks ending the argument. He makes it sound like they’re four magic incantations recited by the faithful that puts metaphysical tape over their opponents’ mouths. If these end the argument, maybe it’s because you hoplophobes haven’t come up with believable counterarguments, eh?

There’s always a gun people control debate after a tragedy involving firearms. The problem for you statists who would control us is that you keep using the same old tired arguments that the majority of populace does not buy.

It’s obvious that the antis are feeling a bit defeated these days. But it’s clear to this writer that there’s plenty of debate going on, just nothing new.

Ayn Rand said it best: “A gun is not an argument.”

And we know damn well that those who would restrict us further in our right to keep and bear arms would have no compunction about using government guns to enforce their edicts. Whether you accept it or not, that makes you an accessory to the state sponsored murder of me and those who think like me. Although I have scant hope that there would be a 100 heads response to my death by tyrant, you can rest assured that the collectivists’ army will eventually take out someone of enough significance that you who advocate for our disarmament most definitely will be one of those 100 heads sought out as a result. To echo Billy Beck’s take on those who think they only advocate common sense gun laws but really advocate for reversing the government to citizen equation:

Get those guns out of my face and I can be the sweetest person you ever met. I will always meet you on your premises.

Should you succeed in subversively enacting further control over our lives, you’re advocacy will not be forgotten when the killing of those who love liberty begins. You can be certain that our side will be operating under Clinton’s “Serbian Rules.”

When it comes to my unalienable human rights, I will not argue to make my point. Not because our side doesn’t have great arguments for the uninfringed right to keep and bear arms, as we most certainly do. I will only argue for my own entertainment.

Tam, of the blog View from the Porch gets credit for an often quoted footnote to one of her “tab clearing” posts: “Where the hell do you get off thinking you can tell me I can’t own a gun? I don’t care if every other gun owner on the planet went out and murdered somebody last night. I didn’t. So piss off.”.

So, yeah: do that.

Update: via Mike, Mama Liberty says, “Get over it” which is a slightly nicer way of saying Tam’s “So piss off.” ML’s post is great. Go read it. (I still like “piss off” better than “get over it” but it’s a great post, nonetheless. :-))

Battered Utopia

socialisthellhole, statists

The collectivists of today may not want us to consider that the government of every socialist hellhole in more than the last century has not just seen it necessary to slaughter a goodly portion of the humans inhabiting the land they saw themselves fit to rule over, but actually glorified their obliteration.

Today’s would be rulers want us to think that it’s just small matter of the wrong people being in charge.

So what happens next time the liberty stealing pigs bump up against those of us who only want to be left alone?

My advice? Don’t try to find out.

Your utopia has been beaten to a bloody pulp and left for dead. And we’ll stand guard over its body while it bleeds out the way the Pima County SWAT team stood over its prey, Jose Guerena after riddling his body with government bullets for no good reason.

May the your hopes of a utopian workers’ paradise die a vicious death. It deserves no sentimentalism.

h/t Mike for the Daily Iowan link.

Political Action – A “Necessary Fail”

activism, nannystate, statists, teaparty, threepercent

After sending the text of my previous post to all seven Johnston County Commissioners, I got a response back from three of them. The first one just said “Thanks for the email” and that was that. Nice discourse.

The third one was actually from a clerk who simply sent me Allen Mims’ (the Chairman) memo explaining the delay of the hearing and formation of the working group, which I had already read.

But the second one was from Vice Chairman Commissioner Jeff Carver who said simply, “Thanks for the email, please call me to discuss.”

Well. That was more than I expected. So I took him up on the offer, got his cell phone number from him and called him later that night. We spoke for 20 minutes or so about a number of things I mentioned in my email (which he said he thought was the longest he’d ever received, even outside his role as Commissioner) as well as some other points. I’ll include some details from that conversation in another follow-up post.

But, at the end of the conversation he suggested I take a few days to digest what we talked about and that if I wanted to speak with him again, or even meet with him person, that he’d be happy to oblige. I’m happy to report that I took him up on the offer and Mr. Carver didn’t renege on the agreement to meet with me. Knitebane, another friend from Johnston County and I met with the Commissioner today for lunch and discussed several issues surrounding this proposed ordinance for about 45 minutes. I would like to publicly thank Vice Chairman Jeff Carver for meeting with three Johnston County citizens in person to discuss our concerns. I’ll include details of today’s conversation in my follow-up to be posted later tonight or sometime this weekend.

I don’t know whether or not, even with reinforcements, we’ve swayed the Commissioner much or at all. But what this post is mostly about is something I think Arctic Patriot said first not long ago. It’s the concept of a necessary fail. I can’t begin to describe my frustration with both family members and friends and acquaintances who assert that “it doesn’t matter what you do or say or who you vote for…the whole process is corrupt and there is no point in participating.” And yet those same people will complain to no end about one government action or another. Or even, if you can believe it, scream for the government to do something about some disaster or another (bank collapse, mass shooting). These same people who moan on and on about their government being corrupt, incompetent, or about them not having a voice, demand that that very government come to the rescue.

The necessary fail here is making your voice heard. Stand up and declare that your rights are not up for majority vote. They are not negotiable. Like I said once, Three Percenters (or the three percent credo) are consistently misrepresented. None of them I know are hoping for the shooting to start. But as Mike Vanderboegh keeps saying, there is little hope that this government will be able to restrain itself. They will overreach to the point of violence. Some say they already have, but I mean there will be a violent action by this government that even those who seriously believe that it can’t happen here will be calling for resistance.

Should that happen, and you find yourself needing to make the choice to defend yourself and your family against a government out of control with rage and making up trumped up charges to boot-stomp your face because of what you believe, in my opinion, you will be obliged to ask yourself a simple question or two: “Do I have the moral authority to pull that trigger? Have I done everything in my power to prevent it from getting to this point?”

If the answer is No to either of those questions, then what makes you think fighting for your freedom at the point of a gun is going to bring about a restored republic if you haven’t trained yourself through repetition and taught your offspring to keep on reminding those in political office who really is in charge?

Yes, I know it feels pointless. Yes, I know both major parties more and more seem to be two wings of the same party. Yes, I know that some of the tea partiers seem to have been compromised already. That’s no excuse. You must do your part.

This is the first time I have ever met face to face with a politician in my life. And my life flashed before my eyes. 😉 Seriously, though, it was probably the most important political action I’ve ever taken in my life. No armed rally, no campaign contribution, no letter writing, no voting could accomplish what I did today. We made our voices heard directly, three feet or less in front of his face. He knows we mean business. He knows we will be at the hearing when it is rescheduled. If he doesn’t listen…well, we’ve done our part. And I will feel justified in violating the ordinance every chance I get. And taken to a larger political scale with more egregious infringements, more serious acts of disobedience.

Stay tuned and later tonight or this weekend I’ll have some information on what we talked about with Commissioner Carver.

Johnston County, NC, Attempts to Ban Spit-balls

nannystate, statists

Okay, maybe not, but I’m told that the proposed ban on shooting any projectiles within 600 feet of any dwelling may be broad enough to include arrows, BBs, and pellets.

Looking here it’s apparent the Board of Commissioners has gotten significant feedback. Significant enough to postpone the hearing. Well, let’s just say that based on the wording of Chairman Allen L. Mims, Jr.’s memo (pdf), I don’t have a lot of warm fuzzies. This whole idea needs to be scrapped.

Here’s what I will be sending to the Johnston County Board of Commissioners, possibly via postal mail due to it’s length. Please feel free to continue to give them feedback telling them what you think of this nanny state proposal.

UPDATE: I see from the December 20, 2010 memo by the Chairman that this hearing has been postponed pending the outcome of a working group study. I believe all of my statement below is still relevant. Even more so given this wording from the aforementioned memo:

…the Board and I have decided to develop a workgroup, consisting of Commissioner, staff and citizen representatives, who will review the proposed firearm ordinance, address the citizen concerns and develop a revised ordinance that is mutually acceptable among us all.

The concern this raises is that I believe NO ordinance will be acceptable. Existing laws against reckless endangerment already cover the necessary concerns. This is not about safety. This is about control.

Originally planned statement for January 3rd hearing follows:

Not to focus on the distance, but has anyone done the math on the 600ft number? That would essentially require a minimum of about 32 acres in order to comply. That’s assuming a square lot and a dwelling on one corner and shooting in the center to guarantee that no neighbors’ dwellings are closer than that same 600ft away. And this doesn’t even take into account the travel distance of the bullets from the shooting position to the target.

At a family member’s house in NH, a racoon had to be eliminated due to its insistence on preying on their chickens. This was carried out with a 12 gauge shotgun maybe 50 yards from house.

Will this be prohibited?

At the same family member’s house, a squirrel had to be eliminated due the damage it was doing to their deck. This was carried out with a 20 gauge shotgun directly under the deck, a few feet from the house.

Will this be prohibited?

We also shot clay targets off the deck of that house.

Will this be prohibited?

At a friend’s house outside of Angier in Johnston County, we shoot at a target 100 yards away from a position mere feet from his own house.

Will this be prohibited?

No neighbor has ever complained. No one was ever injured or killed. All necessary safety precautions were taken. All four of Colonel Cooper’s rules were followed.

According to the North Carolina State Center for Health Statistics, of the 84 accidental deaths (page 32) in Johnston County in 2009

  • 31 were transport accidents (pedestrian, passenger, driver)
  • 24 were falls
  • 16 were poisonings and other accidental exposures
  • 6 were drownings or other threats to breathing
  • 4 were fire related
  • 1 was contact with a venomous animal
  • 1 was heat exposure
  • and 1 was firearm related.

I have no details on what this one Johnston County accidental firearm death was, but I would think an investigation was done and the responsible party was held accountable according to existing law. Given that 7 of those 31 accidental transport deaths were pedestrians, why are we not proposing a ban on driving within 600ft of any dwelling or within 600ft of any pedestrian walkway? If a law against a relatively safe, but not 100% risk free activity could prevent accidents, surely we should be focusing on the 7 pedestrians our county lost last year to transport accidents before even embarking on consideration of a target shooting, hunting, and pest control ban, should we not?

In all seriousness, I believe every member of this board knows that neither regulation makes sense. We already have laws against reckless endangerment.

I’m sure many private ranges exist across North Carolina which are very near dwellings. I have not heard of any confirmed reports of poor safety records that cannot be addressed by current laws. I’ve shot at one of these with the shooting position only a few feet away from the house.

Ask anyone with a barn how often they have to eliminate rats, possums, or other pests.

This is not about public safety. If it were, we would be hearing about these supposed investigated and confirmed unsafe ranges at this hearing. And even if we do, there are already legal avenues to address those problems.

We don’t need this ordinance. This is not about public safety. This is about control.

Many of us here understand that there may be some on this board who will choose to ignore the facts presented here tonight about the foolishness of this proposal. So let me take a few more moments to explain what will happen should this pass, or frankly, even if it doesn’t, but there are any affirmative votes for it.

Is it possible that this Board did not get the message of the last election? It’s not just about the economy. It’s certainly not just about messaging. Make. Government. Stop. Out of the seven board members here, three ran for re-election in 2010, each of them unopposed. In 2012, the other four will be up for re-election. I will make a promise to you here and now that if this ordinance passes due to your vote, I will make every effort to rally the citizens of Johnston County to ensure you do not run unopposed in 2012. And that goes for the three who ran in 2010 if you should run for re-election in 2014. And we will make it a central issue of the election.

In the current political climate, many more like me have awakened from our slumber and decided that voting is not enough and even contributing to campaigns is not enough. We will not stop until those who vote for this ordinance are removed from office.

We will be contacting Sheriff Steve Bizzell and requesting that he instruct his deputies to ignore this ordinance and refuse to enforce it.

We will also be contacting Susan Doyle and asking her to do what one brave Wisconsin District Attorney did recently. He has refused to enforce Wisconsin’s unconstitutional restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms. We will be asking District Attorney Doyle to refuse to prosecute any charges of violations of this ordinance.

Both of them will also be put on notice that they will not run unopposed in their respective primaries next time they are up for re-election should they not agree to refuse to file charges or prosecute cases, respectively.

If this ordinance passes, in addition to a future, concerted campaign to unseat you, we will host a ‘Disobey Ordinance 16-3’ shoot. We will shoot on my friend’s property outside of Angier, but inside Johnston County, a mere few feet from his house at a target 100yds away. We may limit it to .22LR or .22 Short ammo at a closer range, but it will be our symbolic way of saying, NO MORE. Everyone attending will be required to take at least one shot, a .22 Short from a single action revolver if they want. All seven members of this Board will be invited as well as anyone on our side with this issue. There will be food, there will be talk that some government officials, possibly some of you, would disapprove of, and there will be some good, fun noise.

We will even consider making it a monthly event until the ordinance is repealed.

Something else will likely happen. As I’ve indicated, you’ve awakened a sleeping giant. And frankly, I expect to lobby for what I’m about to propose regardless of what is done here with this ordinance. It’s just that if this passes, I will pursue it with much more vigor. You see, North Carolina has a toothless firearms pre-emption law. Places like Chapel Hill, Cary, and Durham have been testing its limits. Both Pennsylvania and Florida have much stronger pre-emption laws, but County Boards and City Councils in both states have been ignoring those laws with impunity.

So at least in Florida, a new approach is being taken. If the proposal passes, County Commissioners, City Councilors, Law Enforcement Officers, and Prosecutors will be held criminally responsible, personally, for ignoring the statewide pre-emption of firearms laws. This will be on top of 18 USC 241, Conspiracy to Violate Civil Rights, or 242, Violation of Civil Rights Under Color of Law.

Grass Roots North Carolina indicates that with the recent elections, there is a much stronger pro-gun contingent in the NC state legislature. We will push for a firearms pre-emption law in North Carolina that has these kind of teeth, along with a revamp (elimination in most cases) of most gun laws at the state level.

And just so you understand where we stand in this negotiation, let me say this. We have come here because, metaphorically speaking, someone has threatened to cut off our right leg. We have to wonder if the hope was that we would settle for, oh, say, just giving up our left foot. Let me straighten out this potential misperception. We were threatened, metaphorically speaking, with amputation. Our position is that we are changing the starting point of this negotiation. We’ve come, metaphorically speaking, for both legs of those who are proposing this ordinance. And our hope is that everyone leaves with all of their limbs in tact. Metaphorically.

In short, back off.

For 75 plus years, gun owners have backed up upon every new gun regulation. We are here to say…NO MORE! NOT ONE MORE INCH!

So, They’re Coming to Take You Away, You Say?

ahumanright, oathkeepers, statists, teotwawki

“I am not your serf”

That’s how I signed a farewell note to some fellow employees at a former rather oppressive employer. In that case, I had the choice available to me to leave. With the bill just passed in the House with its criminal penalties for not participating, we’re not being given a choice. The moronic comparison to auto insurance doesn’t even come close. Even in that case, I can choose not to drive, and some people in fact can’t drive for one reason or another, so don’t have auto insurance. There is no penalty. By simply living and breathing we are being required to pay for something most of us don’t want. Or at least we don’t want government approved insurance.

Mike at Sipsey Street posts his latest to reiterate that we are not to fire first.

I’ve had no confusion about this since he first starting writing about Fort Sumter.

However, I think the question in many of our minds is, “how will we know?”

What I mean is, the FedGov and the complicit state run media will most certainly distort or outright lie about the reason for the standoff with those ‘anti-government oath-whatever-amajigs’.

How can we be sure that if a standoff takes place due to the sequential events listed below, that the truth will get out?

a) bills pass both houses and result is signed into law
b) citizen oath keeper unenrolls from existing health insurance as a protest
c) tax time comes and, against the advice of citizen’s tax adviser, citizen refuses to submit to $15,000 fine
d) citizen is contacted by FedGov informing them that he must pay the fine and asking why it wasn’t paid
e) citizen informs FedGov of his refusal to submit to this affront to his God given liberty
f) FedGov officials arrive on the ‘compound’ (state run media word for ‘more than 2 acres’) to take citizen to jail to await show trial
g) citizen tells two FedGov officials at his door to go pound sand and slams the door
h) FedGov breaks down door with drawn weapons and one of them fires at ‘armed individual’ who only had a gun in a holster. He misses and citizen draws and fires, killing both officials
i) a perimeter is established, and media is called to the scene to witness federal officials’ show of force in apprehending ‘anti-government gunman who has holed himself up at his compound.’

All wildly hypothetical, of course, but the point is, I think we all need to be thinking about media contact. And new media will be essential.

I propose:

As much surveillance as you can afford at your place of residence, including audio and outside cameras if possible. There are many possible ways to set this up, but the key here will be collecting the video on a computer where it can be processed, cut into smaller manageable chunks and archived. Be sure to have remotely hosted servers (virtual servers like Amazon’s cloud offering can be acceptable) and have video copied to it automatically on regular (or continuous) intervals. Security including encryption is essential.

At regular intervals, unless you intervene before the interval is up, the remotely hosted server should be set up to post video to Youtube, but also other on-line video services and sent to friends and family, or someone else, possibly, if you don’t want to unwittingly implicate someone who doesn’t want to be involved.

What I’m talking about here is sort of a dead man switch. If you are not able to prevent the posting, emailing, etc. of your surveillance video, then it will get posted.

That’s just a rough idea. I plan on doing something like this myself and will work out the details. I may have to suggest a less public forum for discussions of the details.

Update: I should also add that it would be a good idea to record yourself, Youtube style, explaining at each step of the way what you are doing, and why you are doing it. I.e.: first one might be recorded when you first unenroll from your insurance. That way, anybody viewing the surveillance of a FedGov attack will have the full context.

MA LTC

concealcarry, statists, thugocracy

I wasn’t sure I wanted to do this. I’ve heard a wide variety of views on how far we should go with respect to civil disobedience regarding conceal-carrying firearms. In my current state of residence, it almost makes no sense to have a conceal carry, given that the penalties for carrying where you are not supposed to are greater than if you have no permit at all and are caught carrying. I’ve been told that it’s only a misdemeanor and if you’ve used it in a self-defense situation, you will likely have any ‘gun charges’ dismissed. No, I am not a lawyer, and haven’t actually asked a lawyer about it, though. So caveat emptor.

But I do visit the VDZ of MA a few times a year. It’s a long drive and I pass through a few other states that are problematic. I can at least transport my equipment through any of them and if any of the JBTs in those states decide to make an example of me, I may be able to slap them down in court with 18 U.S.C 926A.

But due to the draconian, anti-human rights laws in MA, it could involve much more than a short visit to the courthouse should you run afoul of the whims of the faux royalty in that state. So, given my typically three times a year visits up there per year, and the fact that it’s not my state any more, I figured it’s not my battle at the moment. Yes, I know we can all help with battles in other states, but I figure focusing my energies on my current home state and it’s problematic laws as well as laws at the federal level would be the best approach. Don’t want to wind up in a re-education cell in a foreign land. So I’ll obey the statists in MA for now. At least until my few remaining relatives there defect.

I do feel like I’m conceding that MA officials have the authority to allow or deny me the ability to carry my mark. But one relative put it this way:

As for conceding that MA officials “have authority”, I don’t see it that way. I see it as conceding that MA is a communist, totalitarian thug state.

Soothed me at least a little bit.

The brief summary of the process is as follows. Note the first step may change if MA updates its web site. The current phone number for the FRB is (617) 660-4780, but here’s how I got it for posterity:

  1. Visit http://www.mass.gov/

    1. Click on the ‘For Government’ tab
    2. Click on ‘A-Z Agency List’ under ‘Branches & Departments’
    3. Scroll down and click on ‘Criminal History Systems Board’ (yeah, I know)
    4. Click on ‘Firearms Records Bureau’
    5. Click on ‘Firearms Possession Information’
    6. Click on ‘Non-Residents’
    7. Call number listed on that page to have an application snail-mailed to you.

  2. Get a pair of passport style photos taken. Most Post Offices will do this.
  3. Fill out the application.
  4. Take the fingerprint card and the actual blank license (in triplicate) to your local police department or sheriff’s office. Be sure to call them in advance to see if an appointment is required. Note that one issue I had is that my sheriff’s office no longer had a process for ink fingerprints which is what’s needed for the actual license (just the right index finger). They dug up the old ink fingerprinting equipment just for me, but you may not be as fortuitous.
  5. Draft your reason for ‘all legal purposes.’ I suggest avoiding statements like “It’s my constitutional right!” or “It’s the mark of a free man!”. Either play the game and give a reason that doesn’t rub their immature hoplophobia in their faces, or don’t bother applying. My reason alluded to my elderly mother whom I visit in MA and take on errands and don’t feel I can protected sufficiently due to my own advancing years.
  6. Find an instructor at GOAL and schedule and take your safety course to get your certificate of completion. That’ll likely run you about $100.
  7. Bundle it all up with the $100 fee and send it along.

Note that MA issues Class B licenses that aren’t really LTC licenses, but also issues two types of Class A LTCs, one of which, annoyingly, isn’t really an LTC at all. It’s only an LTC if it says ‘NO RESTRICTIONS’ on it or something else that indicates carrying is okay. Kind of reminds me of an airport I went to recently that has all these signs inside the terminal indicating what you must do to transport firearms on your flight. Yet there’s this huge sign on the road leading to the airport warning drivers that no firearms are allowed on the premises and violators will be prosecuted. Leave it to a bureaucrat. I’d say weirdness like the non-LTC LTC in MA and the conflicting signs at that airport are a good indication that the policy was devised out of pure emotional panic and no rational thought. The cognitive dissonance of the hoplophobes never ceases to amaze.

III