Are you blinking hard? Re-reading the screen cap making sure you read it right? Trying to make sense of whomever was the idiot who wrote that? You are not the only one.

Now, it is not as stupid as it may look like. For most Americans, even many on the Liberal side of politics, the legal concept of Self defense is a sacred right not to be trampled by anybody. But what if that concept is put into shame? How about we slowly erode the principle that your life must be fought for against somebody that intends to take it? The idea is that eventually self-defense would become a dirty expression and soon after a dirty deed that must be tightly controlled by the Government.

The latest movement in our increasingly Beta Male/Female world is the concept of accusing somebody of shaming a particular type by way of your words or actions (Fill-The-Blank) Shaming is actually a misnomer because the person that is being shamed is the alleged violator, in this case Ben Carson for daring to say he would rather fight than be a passive receptacle of bullets. According to Everytown, if you dare not being a victim, you somehow are psychologically trampling on the feelings of all victims in this world. Don’t you know misery loves company? How dare you be different?

If you think I am full of it, allow me to point out that self-defense outside the US is not but a shadow of what we know and have here. The bar to prove self-defense is so high in many other countries that citizens find themselves trapped between the immediate threat of losing life or limb and the long-term threat of going to prison because the government decided that the bastard attacking you had more rights than you and therefore you should go to prison.

Maybe the youngins have not heard about the very illustrative case of Tony Martin in England since it happened 16 years ago (Holy crap, that long?.) One night in August of 1999, Tony Martin, a farmer from Norfolk in Jolly Old England, had his home broke in by a couple of criminals. Mr. Martin shot them with his shotgun as they were climbing the stairs of his residence and even after he warned them he was armed and intended to shoot. He did and killed one and wounded the other. Castle Doctrine, right? Hell the damn concept originated in England! Nope, Mr. Martin was tried and convicted to Life in Prison. And to add insult to injury, the burglar that got wounded sued Tony Martin for 15,000 pounds claiming loss of wages. And it gets better, the government gave the burglar taxpayers money so he could sue Mr. Martin because he was a victim of his shooting in self-defense.

Even the uber cool Brits lost their minds at the unfairness of the verdict. Appeals were introduced and rejected initially but eventually and using mental health issues (and no doubt a great dose of pressure from the outside the legal system) Martin’s sentence was reduced to 7 years and he was released early in 2003 for good behavior.

If the Martin case felt like a bomb among the Brits, in the US Gun Rights community had the impact of a tactical nuke. We were at the tail end of eight years of the Clinton Administration telling people that we should be more like England and that they were more advanced than us and the rednecks of the NRA, that England’s system was not only better but morally superior and we should adopt it fully. Then the Martin Case comes along and shows how legally corrupt and immoral the British Gun Control turned out to be.

Great Britain is done for. Even politicians promised to eliminate such cumbersome high bar for self-defense, they only paid lip service, gave that pig a shot of botox and some falsies. The the common Brit subject remains a victim of both the criminals and Her Majesty’s justice system. And that is the dream of the Gun Control Cabal: If confiscation fails, they will make you pay for daring saving your life.

We cannot allow them to do that.

PS: Found a somewhat recent article about Tony Martin. He is still dealing with all the crap courtesy of Her Majesty’s brand of “justice.”

Seen over at the Book of Face was this brilliance:

The responses went pretty much as you would expect, there were those who were somewhat pro gun, and those who… delved into the predictable territory of “Americans are stupid” and criticism of America’s gun culture.

Of course the “need” for assault rifles came up (i.e. why does anybody “need” them) and mandatory training was discussed.  Which resulted in typical pearl clutching.

Well, allow me to retort. 

The reason smart people go “f**king crazy and think the government is coming for [our] guns” is because that IS the end game for some politicians.  Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) said exactly that 20 years ago.  Don’t believe me, let her tell you herself.

When the NY SAFE act was passed, it included a provision to have all high capacity (over 10 round) magazines, including ones that had been previously grandfathered in, either turned into law enforcement or disposed of out of state.  The County of Los Angeles just passed a similar law.  Connecticut banned the sale of new high capacity mags.  Yes it’s true that magazines are not guns themselves, but they are a crucial part of the gun.  More importantly, it is a step in the direction of a confiscatory gun ban.  Get the mags first.  When people get used to that, get the guns next.  Notice how these laws all come with registration of certain, if not all, guns AND magazines.

Hillary Clinton praised Australia’s confiscatory gun ban during the DNC primary.  The article by VOX is almost giddy about Clinton wanting to confiscate guns.

Smart people see the politics of gun control like a game of chess.  It is played in small moves.

We want full 50 state CCW, that is one of our goals.  We can’t get that all at once.  We win concealed carry in Illinois, now all 50 states have a CCW law.  Next we have to win changing may issue state to shall issue. That is on the move in Maryland.  Once we have 50 state, or near 50 state, shall issue, wining national reciprocity will be easier.

We want to end the NFA.  States easing NFA restrictions has been a step in that direction.  Now there is a bill to take suppressors of the NFA.  If that passes, SBR’s and SBS’s will be next.

They want to take our guns away.  We know that.  They make it very clear that they don’t like the idea of independent armed Americans.  They know if they go for a nation wide gun ban there will be pushback.  Clinton won the Brady Bill and the Dems lost control of Congress.  So they are playing small ball.  Registration in the states they know they can get that.  Confiscatory magazine bans in states where they can get that too.  Ease people into accepting confiscation.  First take the mags then what?  Take the assault rifles?  Make a requirement for “bullet buttons” on handguns?

We are calling them out on their end game.  We don’t want to give them an inch.

This case came with my alerts for Stand Your Ground, I found interesting and did a bot of digging. If anything, serves as a good example of being wary about what gets published initially and what comes after everybody took a long breath and got the facts.

Same Newspaper website, same case:

This is from March 2014

James Terrance Sopenasky, 29, is charged with murder and two counts of attempted murder, said Assistant Chief Chris Butler.Kenneth Stephen Jackson Jr., 22, of Cedar Trace Drive was driving in the 3300 block of Cancun Drive with two other men when several rounds were fired at the vehicle about 6:30 p.m., Butler said.
Jackson was hit by one of the bullets, and his pickup truck continued down the road striking several mailboxes and a light pole, Butler said. He was found dead in the pickup truck and the two other men were not injured and scattered to get help.

Source: Jacksonville man charged with murder was in dispute with sister’s ex-boyfriend | jacksonville.com

And this is from 10/27/2015:

James Terrance Sopenasky, 30, faces a life sentence if he’s convicted of the first-degree murder of 22-year-old Kenneth Stephen Jackson Jr. Sopenasky also is charged with the attempted murders of two friends of Jackson.
Jackson drove to Sopenasky’s house intending to fight him March 25, 2014, after the two men had a confrontation earlier in the day. When he arrived and started walking toward Sopenasky’s house, Sopenasky fired several warning shots in the ground, his lawyer said. When Jackson got back in his car, Sopenasky shot into the car and hit Jackson three times in the back of the head.“Steven Jackson died as he was putting his truck in reverse driving away from this defendant,” said Assistant State Attorney Brian Brady during opening statements.

Source: Jacksonville trial begins for man accused of killing sister’s former boyfriend | jacksonville.com

Same basic set up, but different actions taken by both the defendant and the victim. I am not condemning the first reporter because for all we know, he got the info from the cops that might have been as uninformed of the details as he was. But it goes to show that all the facts and evidence needs to come in before we can render a somewhat studied opinion and that is something that the Opposition does not do and gets them burned more often than not.

According to Digital Trends, the Terradyne Gurkha RPV makes the “Hummer H1 look cuter than a Toyota Yaris,” and honestly, from the Gurkha’s exterior, we can’t argue with that. Like the original Hummer H1, the Gurkha is a civilian version of a military vehicle. It’s the ultimate go anywhere/flee from the zombie apocalypse type of vehicle.

Source: The Gurkha is Here to Save You From the Apocalypse – Ford-Trucks.com

Or to drive in the highways and byways of Magic City in regular days.  I like the ground clearance, you can almost park a properly crushed Prius underneath it.

The second, related, piece of legislation that I’d like to see passed is a federal anti-trafficking bill. Sen. Gillibrand recently introduced legislation that would make it a federal crime to traffic guns; it’s shocking that this isn’t already a federal crime. Just the other week, a man was indicted for running guns from Georgia to NYC, and even our local prosecutors are calling for a federal anti-trafficking statute so they can charge them with a federal crime.

Source: The People in Your Neighborhood: Dumbo Mom Demands Action for Gun Sense | Brooklyn Heights Blog

That is the quote from Jaime Pessin (pictured left), honcho for the New York chapter of Moms Demand.

Now, I am confused. I thought 18 U.S. Code 922 covered pretty much illegal transactions with firearms at interstate trafficking level and even local. I don’t expect that some mommy in NY knows about this particular federal law, specially since she gets her talking points from Bloomberg and Co. but Senator Gillibrand should be able to ask one of her assistants and check to see if that particular line of bullcrap is real or not.

Unless, of course, we are moving goalposts again and “trafficking” is a cute way to target interstate transactions among private individuals via places like Gun Broker. We know that the Opposition gets all moist in the nether regions about the “unlicensed dealers” (private citizens) selling their guns to other “unlicensed dealers” across the nation, even though such transactions have to go through a Federal Firearms License holder. They would love to have that stopped in its tracks not because those transactions are tied to any criminality, but because they represent freedom.

We are going to have to keep an eye on this one.

I’ve covered before the fact that guns are flying off the shelves in Israel gun stores as a result of the wave of stabbings by Palestinians going on in Israel.

As is turns out, the same thing is going on in Austria.  Handgun laws in Austria, and Europe in general, are more restrictive than in Israel, so the gun buy is mostly shotguns and hunting rifles which are easier to obtain… but still.

The European presses are pushing that this is in response to fear of Syrian refugees, and that that fear is unfounded.

Well… what we are learning is that the refugee camps are a hotbed of rape and child abuse.  That particular brand of violence has been on the rise in Europe for some time, with Sweden’s rate of rape having gone through the roof.  There have been reports of Christian refugees being murdered in the refugee camps by Islamic refugees.  Crime in Europe has shot up dramatically, and in some if not many cases, the local governments have played it down or covered it up as to not be perceived as racist or Islamophobic for targeting the minority population responsible.

This is how (I believe) Europe as we know it will end.  European Democratic Socialism is sustained by the belief that if the European people hand over (nearly) half their income in taxes and much of the control they have over their lives to the government, the government will take care of them.  Of course this is unreasonable on it’s face, but the European people have a cultural history of being subjects not free citizens and a strong sense of risk aversion.  These two cultural traits make it easier for Europe to embrace Democratic Socialism.  But now the veil is coming down.  The governments of Europe can’t and/or won’t protect their citizens from Islamic immigrant crime, rape, child molestation, and violence.  The Welfare State that Europeans pride themselves on is being strained to the breaking point as immigrants and refugees collect benefits from a system they never paid into.  Immigrants and refugees, who are usually young and able bodied, are collecting more than retired Europeans who paid into the system their whole lives.

The people of Austria are figuring out they can’t trust their government to protect them any more.  They are buying guns to protect themselves.  As the violence increases, the European governments won’t be able to keep a lid on the crisis.  When enough Europeans catch on to the fact that they have been abandoned by the socialist government they trusted, the system will collapse.

In-Store video taping is normal. We are now living in a society that has constant eyes and they extend to the inside of gun stores for the most part and has no bearing on our rights. However this is not what CSGV is trying to say and what drove the last gun store out of SanFran: it is that every purchase must be video taped, attached to the particular sale and kept in a data base for Law Enforcement.

This costs money and I can imagine that the extra work went against the slim profit margin that the store had. Of course, the video taping itself does help as much as gun tracing does in solving crimes: zero. It is just another wound in the Death By Thousand Cuts that the Opposition loves to inflict.

Florida presented an interesting problem for WalMart when it made its deal with Bloomberg as we have a statute that forbids any database of firearms other than the Federal.

No state governmental agency or local government, special district, or other political subdivision or official, agent, or employee of such state or other governmental entity or any other person, public or private, shall knowingly and willfully keep or cause to be kept any list, record, or registry of privately owned firearms or any list, record, or registry of the owners of those firearms.
Florida Statutes 790.335 (2)

and

(4) PENALTIES.—(a) Any person who, or entity that, violates a provision of this section commits a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.

That is 5 years in prison and $5,000 in fines. No exception for people working for the government and no government funds can be used to pay the fines, they come out of their pockets.

I contacted Wal-Mart back when they made the deal with Bloomberg and MAIG (that is when MAIG allegedly was something of importance) and asked them how would they balance their compromise with the law, knowing what the law said and that they would end up placing workers in a position of breaking the law and ending up in prison or fined heavily.  What I got back was a terse email which basically stated that they abide by the laws of the State of Florida while doing their corporate best to assure customer safety. My take is that somebody in legal told them “Y’all done screw up. Can’t force the minions to do database or we will get sued for forcing our workers to break the law. Don’t say squat and don’t do that sh** either.”

If I were a suspicious man, I would bet that Wal-Mart dropped or never quite implemented the Bloomberg deal other than keeping video unattached to any specific sales and for certain amount of time and only accessing it upon request of a LEO investigation which would be what anybody in any store of any kind of product sales would do.