Via Sean Sorrentino

For the first time this year, the Secret Service has a hand in credentialing the media; during previous conventions only the Congressional press galleries were in charge of credentialing the media. Members of the media began hearing more about the Secret Services’ role in the credentialing process as they began to attend walk-throughs at the convention sites in Philadelphia and Cleveland, leading BuzzFeed Washington Bureau Chief John Stanton to issue a strongly worded letter to fellow journalists, urging them to speak up about the new processes. In his letter Stanton cited concerns about the background checks, the lack of a clear appeals process, and the involvement of a third-party subcontractor, urging his fellow journalists to express their concern over the process.“It seems like an unnecessary step and it gives them in my mind a new and troubling precedence to try and exert authority over the press corps,” Stanton said in an interview. “It creates a logistical burden, a troubling precedent for their ability to have almost a de facto say in who is qualified to be a reporter at these events. What if they use this as precedent to extend to other campaign events or any government events?”

Source: Secret Service takes on new credentialing role for conventions – POLITICO

The sound of thousands of whiners concentrated in one article. I don’t know if they are more insulted because they are treated like potential criminals or treated like the “redneck gun owners” they thoroughly despise.

“They’re making our areas de facto national security area. That makes no sense to me personally,” Stanton said. “Secret Service telling us we’re just going to have to live with it and I don’t think we should go quietly on it.“

You don’t think you should go quietly? You are right, and I support your right not to be treated like a criminal. But you have to understand that you helped make the bed you are now asked to lay down on when you had no problem demanding that millions of Law Abiding Citizens endure Background Checks just because you don’t like guns.

The problem is, you are going to find few Americans that will support you as Journalists are trusted at the same level of politicians and used-car salesmen. Gun People have a much higher rate of acceptance and trust.

But it gets better:

In his letter, Stanton expressed concern that reporters who had been arrested while covering news events might be flagged in a background check and be denied a secure credential.

All of the sudden, arrests are not the evidence of criminality that forbids a person to exercise his or her rights? That is refreshing!

“It looks like we’re going to be doing this regardless of people’s bad feelings about it. I’m still a little leery on why we’re doing this,” said Zatkowski.

How nasty is when a few people have the power to decided your status and there is nothing you can do about it.

I am gonna close with a comment I saw in Facebook about this article and not only applies but it is a warning for everybody who thinks the Bill Of Rights is outdated and needs to be changed in regards of the Second Amendment:

The argument you use to restrict other people’s freedom today, will be used against you tomorrow.

YAOUNDE, Cameroon — Authorities in northern Cameroon say a local self-defense group used a poisoned arrow to kill a woman with explosives strapped to her body.
Midjiyawa Bakary, the governor of Cameroon’s Far North region, said Wednesday that the 40-year-old woman had crossed over from neighboring Nigeria along with a 14-year-old girl.Local residents shot the poisoned arrow at the woman after she failed to stop as demanded. The girl also died when she detonated her own explosives.

Source: Suicide bomber taken down by poisoned arrow | New York Post

You make do with what you have in spite of what the government does to you.

Africa is turning out to be an experiment on how to deal with the Jihadists. Even though they are severely restricted weapon’s wise, they are not plagued with the virus of political correctness.

Hello, George here. AKA Curby. I will be writing about 07 manufacturer FFL related stuff. I will try to stay away from politics and gun rights as they are well covered,however I may comment occasionally. Right now my primary work is nickel , chrome plating and polishing firearms. Business name Reflections, reflectionsusa.biz ( shameless plug!!) I am also a Certified NRA Instructor and teach. Future plans are building various arms and surpressors and testing them. I will touch on instructing and tips on polishing arms. I will be posting at least once a week. Hopefully I wont bore y all to death. Take care and see ya out there.

To mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, we asked leading actors to perform key speeches from his plays. Here, Damian Lewis performs Antony’s lines from act III, scene 2 of Julius Caesar. Antony has been granted permission to speak at Caesar’s funeral so long as he does not implicate the conspirators in his death, but he skilfully turns the crowd against them.
Damian Lewis as Antony in Julius Caesar: ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen’ – The Guardian

This goes with the St. Crispin’s day speech of Kenneth Branagh.

Special hell for that one.

Hat tip to Robert The K. and Mark T.

In case the article by A.T. Faust on arguing gunsense made you feel as if all arguments had been won. Here’s a man who posted a migraine inducing article on the same day. Perhaps he just needs to head over here to see more clearly.

The article is full of one- and two- liners that make guns, gun owners, and concealed carry sound terrifying. At the Bowling Green State University in Ohio there was an open carry walk. The article writer might be a medical doctor, since that is the only person in the entire city with the same name as the writer. The reason I point that out is that it is not a college student who wrote it.

Migraine inducing quotes below:

“Consider that Mr. Smith[, who led the open carry walk], is a “gun rights” activist and you will easily see that he is simply trying to convert you to his point of view. Mr. Smith and others like him “get off” on “packing heat” and don’t seem to care about the 100s and 1000s of innocent Americans who are executed and otherwise gunned down yearly because of widespread ownership of all sorts of firearms, vigorously promoted by the NRA and its followers.”

“With open carry, at least students have a chance to see the upcoming danger and get out of the way and call the police. With concealed carry, that chance is essentially gone.”

““Gun rights” activists will tell you that concealed carry is the only way that you can protect yourself against people who want to hurt you. If that is correct, then why do so many fully armed policemen/women die at the hands of shooters they never saw coming? Why are gun owners killed with their own weapons in their own homes?”

If you believe 100s and 1000s die because of widespread gun ownership, then check out some statistics. See that there about 10,000 to 14,000 firearm homicides each year if you look at CDC statistics. In 2013, 2,596,993 deaths of USA residents were recorded. 11,208 were firearm homicides. That means firearm homicides were .43% of the total deaths, and .0035% of the U.S.A. population. Ownership is about 101.1 guns per 100 people, according to Gun Policy. If it was the number of guns that dictated deaths, then charts like this wouldn’t exist.

The horizontal axis is guns per 100,000 and the vertical axis is murder per 100,000.

Graph source. Feel free to debate its accuracy. There are many other similar graphs such as the ones that ClockWorkGremlin pointed out below.

And the comment on open carry being okay because then students could see danger coming? This guy definitely just hates guns. Assuming gun owners are all dangerous is way off base.

And that last quote. Really? They were armed but still died, so why should you be able to carry a gun? That reasoning reminds me of the guy who told me that we don’t need semiautomatic rifles with more than 10 rounds.

Side story, I told him about the riots were gun owners stood ground on their stores with semiautomatic rifles in ’92. It wasn’t recent, so he wasn’t convinced. I told him about the Ferguson riots where the riots were allowed to happen for a while and there was a convenience store and a gun shop shared building and the owners awaited the riots. However, the riots did not reach their stores. So no store owners in those riots fired guns to defend their livelihood as far as I know. At this point, the guy I was talking to said that we don’t need “large” magazines because the stores that did burn down did not choose to protect their stores. If you don’t use it, you lose it. I was taken aback for someone to be so blunt about having people lose their rights.

Anyhow, back to saying that because some gun owners and police died even though they were armed means that you don’t need to carry a gun. Flawed logic here, let me demonstrate. Some people died in car wrecks even though they had air bags, so air bags are no good. See how that logic is flawed?

The article has a few other gems you can check out for yourself. The author seems to be angered by the peaceful open carry demonstration, and this is the only column by him. If you look below the column, you can see related columns where students are writing columns about the open carry demonstration in positive light.

Have a nice day, and lower your blood pressure by watching Demolition Ranch shoot a small safe to see how many shots it takes to open it.

As usual, we are only going with was on the paper and does not mean it was what happened

Bradden fired twice at the ground near Johnson’s feet, police in Arlington, Tex., said, one bullet burying into the ground and the second striking his wife’s leg. Johnson fled inside the store, she told the TV station, and told her coworkers to lock the doors.

Then came more gunshots.

Outside, Bradden had fled to his truck and climbed inside, police said. That’s when 35-year-old T.J. Antell, a father of three and CrossFit gym owner, decided to intervene. A concealed carry permit holder, Antell watched the marital dispute unfold, retrieved a gun from his vehicle and approached Bradden, police said.

Instead of abiding by Antell’s commands to stop, police said Bradden climbed out of his truck and fired his gun again. According to an arrest warrant, Bradden admitted to slapping Antell’s gun from his hand before shooting, reported the Dallas Morning News.

Woman says selfie provoked argument that led to fatal shooting at Texas Walgreens _ WaPo

“Most men, no matter how hard they lived, won’t throw down on another.”
Captain “Bucky” O’Neil from the mini series Rough Raiders. 1997.

If you made the decision to own and carry a firearm for self-defense, part of your mindset must deal with the fact that you might be called to legally use deadly force. To make it clear: You may end up killing somebody who was a reasonable threat.  You need to get used (not comfortable) with the idea and the consequences before anything may happen. At the time of a defensive use of a weapon, you do not have the time to sit down and ponder about it…I am wrong, you do have time… the rest of your life timed in seconds.

And although you know that 99% of the defensive uses of a firearm end up without having to pull the trigger, always think yours will be the exception. Don’t think that your gun is some sort of talisman that will correct the misbehaving of a miscreant 100% of the times. We cannot mentally train our minds for best case scenario or that we will even “win” but be ready when the vampire ignores the cross and comes after you which is what I think happened on the story above.

Think about it: The Good Samaritan approached what seemed to be a deadly force confrontation, he had his gun out, the Bad Guy got out of his truck, armed with his own gun, approached the Samaritan, slapped his gun away and shot him dead.  Somewhere in there we had a failure of mindset and probably the expectation of a movie ending.

It did not happen.

Prepare yourself. Train, read, learn.

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