Stolen from Bob Owens.

I simply do not have the words…

Syrian rebel fighters are using Facebook to buy and sell heavy weapons, guns and ammunition – including ‘CIA-supplied’ rocket launchers.One post on a Facebook page shows an AGS-17 Soviet-Era grenade launcher available for $3,800 (£2,731).One of the messages on the Facebook page says: “Quick friends, I need a gun with a silencer.”

Source: eBay for jihadis: Al-Qaeda fighters using FACEBOOK to buy and sell ‘CIA weapons’ – Mirror Online

I am expecting the outrage of Moms Demand and other Gun Control Groups soon… Maybe I should get a comfy chair and beverage.

Oh well.

Gun guys will get one because it gives them an excuse to buy more guns.

“But honey! It looks so empty without more guns!”

The report, called “Start Them Young,” documents exactly how the gun industry is working to appeal to kids. One company has a friendly cartoon mascot, “Davey Crickett,” an armed insect that is used to market a beginner rifle. Consumers can also buy the “Davey Crickett” beanie baby, replete with fake gun…

…”Imagine the public outcry if the alcohol or tobacco industries introduced child-friendly versions of their adult products,” Josh Sugarmann, the study author, said in a release. “Yet the firearms industry and gun lobby are doing all of these things and more in their aggressive efforts to market guns to children.”

Source: Advocacy Group Warns U.S. Gun Industry Is Targeting Children

Imagine if I were to inform you that, sadly you are only 30 plus years late to the outrage party. Yup, late by three decades and change. The Davey Cricket beanie baby is marketing from Keystone Sporting Arms who also sell the “father” of the Cricket Rifle: The Chipmunk. Heck, they even tell you how the Cricket came to be!

In the book Rifles of the World, we find this entry for the Chipmunk Rifle:

Lovely thing the internet that allows you to find information really quick and you find out that patents 4,416,077 and 4,457,094 are dated for 1983 and 1984. The Cricket Rifle dates back to 1996 so it is celebrating its two decades of existence this year which means there is a healthy market for them. Yet, we have not heard of school massacres by kids armed with either rifles…which it is gonna be hard since they are one-shot bolt-action rifles anyway. Now imagine how many thousands of kids learned the proper handling, shooting and respect of firearms with those two rifles alone. But the Opposition needs to keep the Outrage machine fed even if it is with misleading and late information because its followers are misinformed and refusing to learn the truth as shown in the comments of the CSGV post.

There you have it, Folks. Stay tuned since I am sure they will come up with a new outdated outrage soon enough like the facts that the NRA bought the Boy Scouts and they are now teaching kids how to shoot the Cricket Rifles so they can go hunting humans in the ghetto.

PS: I know there are kid rifles even older that the Chipmunk and The Cricket. If you have the knowledge, please share it in the comment section.

One of Zimbabwe’s largest wildlife reserves, the Bubye Valley Conservancy, recently announced that it was considering culling up to 200 lions as the cats have become increasingly overpopulated. The wildlife reserve said its current population of around 500 lions is unsustainable due to the dramatic decline in hunters, possibly caused by the controversy over Cecil, a lion killed near Hwange National Park last year.

Bubye officials say that without hunters to help manage the lion population, they are considering either hiring marksmen to shoot some of the animals, or capturing them and donating the cats to other reserves.

Bubye has historically held one of the largest lion populations in Zimbabwe.“I wish we could give about 200 of our lions away to ease the overpopulation,” Blondie Leathem, the conservancy’s general manager, told the National Post. “If anyone knows of a suitable habitat for them where they will not land up in human conflict, or in wildlife areas where they will not be beaten up because of existing prides, please let us know and help us raise the money to move them.”

Source: Zimbabwe Park to Cull 200 Lions, Cites Lack of Hunters – OutdoorHub

I did a quick search in Safari websites and if you are lucky enough to get a lion within two days, you will be shedding close to $25,000 for the hunt. We have 200 lions to be culled, so all you “Animal Lovers” have to gather is $8,000,000 to cover for the loss of income and I am not adding the meat that will not be given to the locals or the expenses in relocating the lions to a place where they don’t feel the need to attack cattle or humans and have enough food to sustain themselves.

Time to put up or shut up.

Cynthia Dill, a Maine state senator, opined in the opined in the Portland Press Herald that:

“Instead of – or in addition to – ordering Apple to build a technological back door to its phones, why aren’t we ordering weapons makers to put technology in their products that can be used by law enforcement to protect us from gun violence?“

Let me see if I can shorten that sentence for State Senator Dill:

If we can get our hands on the technology to violate Apple users’ 4th Amendment rights, why don’t we go all the way and develop the technology to strip people of their 2nd Amendment rights as well?

Wait, I can do better:

If we can put our left boot on your throats, we can put our right boot on your throats too.

I think that just about sums it up.  I fall squarely in the camp the believes that Apple should, in no uncertain terms, deny the FBI’s request to build in a law enforcement backdoor to the Apple encryption.  In Katz v. United States (1967), the Supreme Court extended 4th Amendment protections to all areas that a person had a “reasonable expectation of privacy.”  The opinion in Katz established a “two tier” test for what constitutes a reasonable vs. unreasonable search.

1. Does a person have a subjective expectation of privacy at the time of the search?
2.  Is that subjective expectation reasonable – i.e., would society as a whole recognize that moment as being private?

The Katz example is a public phone vs. a phone booth.  If you are on a public phone and can be over heard, you don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy.  If you are in a phone booth that you can shut to door to, you do have a reasonable expectation of privacy since you took steps to avoid being overhead.  Since companies, like Apple, advertise the security of their phones and data encryption systems as features, and people and companies often select which phones and carriers to use because of their data encryption and security features, it would be quite reasonable to assume that there is an expectation of privacy in a locked, encrypted phone.

This is not about hacking the San Bernardio shooter’s phone.  This is about giving the Federal Government the ability to hack everybody’s phone, and the Federal Government tells us to “trust them,” that they won’t abuse that ability.  Apple, in the past, has helped law enforcement hack individual computers/phones/etc.  A backdoor into the system for law enforcement is a means of lowering the bar of difficulty for law enforcement to access data.  Perhaps lowering the bar enough that the Fed could claim that with this technology, that all encrypted data is “in plain view.”  Call me a paranoid cynic, but somehow I get the impression that if the Fed had the ability to backdoor their way through Apple’s encryption, by next week they’d have a Bluetooth wand that they could wave over your phone and download all of info off of it with one swipe.  It’s not like the NSA Spent six years listening to people’s calls or the IRS was used to harass groups based on their political leanings or anything like that.

So, an attempt by the government to obtain technology to enhance their ability the violate the Constitution, has given State Senator Dill justification for wanting MORE technology capable of violating the Constitution.

Of course, she retreats to her corner of “it’s for the children:”

“Why is it a 6-year-old child can pick up an iPhone and be prevented from accessing its contents because of a passcode, but that same child can pick up a gun and shoot his 3-year-old brother in the face and kill him by accident?”

Her justification is a bald faced lie.  She wants the ability to render people’s legally obtained guns inoperable at a distance.  Rendering them inoperable is effectively no different can confiscation.  A gun that doesn’t work is as useless as no gun at all.  The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina established that mass gun confiscation was a 2nd Amendment violation.  So a remote deactivation of guns, whether it happens to one person or many would likewise be the same violation.

The two phrases I don’t see are “warrant” or “court order” suggesting that she feels the government should have the power to deactivate anybody’s guns at any time.

“Hey, there is a riot going on down town, let’s just shut off all the civilian guns in the city… wait, how about the county… better yet, the whole state.  Who cares if some people are defending their businesses, homes, and lives with their guns, it’s for the children.”

The demand for smart guns that the government could remotely disable is a constitutional double whammy.  If When your gun is deactivated without a warrant or court order, your 4th Amendment rights were violated, and because it was your gun that was rendered useless, it was your 2nd Amendment rights that were violated.  But considering just how much alacrity she has for violating one Amendment, i’m sure violating another simultaneously is just frosting on the cake.

I mean if you are going to advocate for totalitarian behavior, go big or go home, right?

All this OpEd proves to me is that 1) there is no limit to the restrictions some people want to place on our rights, and 2) I will never own a smart gun as long as I live.

Seriously getting real thin. Chryl Anderson  is the Florida coordinator for Moms Demand and as such, responsible for the above post.  In both “mass shootings,”  I am somehow involved or responsible because I am an NRA member. Both events had convicted felons involved: one was the “victim” in one of the shooting at a hooka bar in the wee hours of the morning and it also happened to be the third shooing in the same place in less than a year.

The other incident was the perpetrator under the influence of drugs and shot at unarmed victims.

 Roy Stephens is a convicted felon who has served time for armed robbery and now escalated to Assault with Deadly Weapon and attempted murder.

Now, where does Chryl Anderson and the rest of the Moms Dements come up with the idea that me as Law Abiding citizen of the USA, NRA member and taxpayer have any similarity with the thugs above? Just because I have guns? That one characteristic is enough to befoul the name of otherwise normal people for just political purposes? That my support for the Constitution and Freedoms enumerated in it are somehow the equivalent of providing firearms and opportunities to the criminal element?

Fine then.

Woman: “So, General, what are you going to do with these young boys on their adventure holiday?”

Genneral: “We’re going to teach them climbing, canoeing, archery, and shooting.”

Woman: “Shooting! That’s a bit irresponsible, isn’t it?”

General: “I don’t see why, they’ll be properly supervised on the range.”

Woman: “Don’t you admit that this is a terribly dangerous activity to be teaching children?”

General: “I don’t see how, we will be teaching them proper range discipline before they even touch a firearm.”

Woman: “But you’re equipping them to become violent killers.”

General: “Well, you’re equipped to be a prostitute, but you’re not one, are you?”