Monday, December 24, 2012

Feinstein's 'assault weapon' ban would be tantamount to confiscation

Via WRSA

Good luck on that.  Are you coming to take our weapons, useful idiot?

 Sen. Feinstein would ban them because they can be "bump fired" 

When Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) announced her intention to introduce a bill banning so-called "assault weapons" on the first day of the 113th Congress next month, the implication was that it would work much like her previous handiwork, the 1994-2004 federal AWB, in that firearms and magazines manufactured before the effective date of the ban would remain legal, and not restricted more oppressively than other firearms. In other words, her legislation would have a "grandfather clause" (although the protection provided by such a clause is often far less than one might expect).

She gave this impression on NBC News (quoted in the Huffington Post):
"It will ban the sale, the transfer, the importation and the possession, not retroactively, but prospectively," and ban the sale of clips of more than ten bullets, Feinstein said.
The "not retroactively" wording would seem to imply that firearms already in private hands would not be subject to the new restrictions.

In a press conference last Friday with Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), however, she painted a far different picture. In this short C-SPAN video clip (which cannot be embedded in Examiner articles), she spills some previously unreleased details about her proposed legislation. She explains that all existing "assault weapons" would be--just as machine guns are currently--put under National Firearms Act (NFA) regulation, with all the legal hoops such regulation entails.

More @ Examiner


Lee’s Letter to His Wife, Christmas Day, 1861

 

“Coosawhatchie, South Carolina, December 25, 1861

I cannot let this day of grateful rejoicing pass, dear Mary, without some communication with you. I am grateful for the many among the past that I have passed with you, and the remembrance of them fills me with pleasure.  For those on which we have been separated we must not repine. If it will make us more resigned and better prepared for what is in store for us, we should rejoice.

Now we must be content with the many blessings we receive.  If we can only become sensible of our transgressions, so as to be fully penitent and forgiven, that this heavy punishment under which we labor may with justice be removed from us and the whole nation, what a gracious consummation of all that we have endured it will be!

As to our old home [Arlington], if not destroyed it will difficult ever to be recognized. Even if the enemy had wished to preserve it, it would almost have been impossible. I fear, too, books, furniture, and the relics of Mount Vernon will be gone. It is better to make up our minds to a general loss. They cannot take away the remembrance of the spot, and the memories of those that to us rendered it sacred.  That will remain to us as long as life will last, and that we can preserve.

You must not build your hopes on peace on account of the United States going into a war with England [via the Trent Affair].  We must make up our minds to fight our battles and win our independence alone. No one will help us. We require no extraneous aid, if true to ourselves. But we must be patient. It is not a light achievement and cannot be accomplished at once.

The enemy is still quiet [here] and increasing in strength. We grow in size slowly but are working hard.

Affectionately and truly, 

R.E. Lee

(The Civil War Christmas Album, Philip Van Doren Stern, editor, Hawthorn Books, 1961, page 18)

The North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com

Christmas on the Plantation


“No sooner was the harvest over, than preparations for Christmas began. Whole calves were barbequed, pigs roasted, while wild game and venison were hunted. For days ahead there was much cooking of plum pudding, fruit cakes, Sally White cakes, pies and all sorts of good things, (they make your mouth water to think of them). The big Yule log was brought in from the swamp the day before Christmas, where it had been soaking for weeks, the alert darkies knowing that as long as it burned in the “great house” they would stop working.

The mansion was elaborately dressed with evergreens, while branches of dried cedar dried hydrangea blooms were powdered with flour, making feathery white blossoms, as if in summer time. The holly tree was ornamented with long strings of popped corn, strung by the white and colored children.

Early Christmas morning the “Great House” was awakened by the singing of the darkies and voices calling out – “Ch’mas gif’, master, “Ch’mas gif”, mistress.” On the great tree were gifts for everyone on the plantation. In the low country of the South the Negroes dressed themselves as clowns, grotesque costumes (being known as “John Kunners”) and marched around ringing bells, as the danced, singing – “Ch’mas comes but once a year, hurrah Johnnie Kunner – give poor [Negro] one more cent, hurrah John Kunner.”  With the passing of their hats, pennies were dropped by the “white folks.”

Words fail to express the Christmas dinner of the old plantation. In front of “Marster” was a roast pig (red apple in his mouth) or the largest gobbler. Innumerable were the desserts or sweet – syllabub, custard, trifle, wine jelly, cocoanut and lemon puddings, mince pies, every kind of cake, and Snow Balls especially for the children.

With the dinner, wines were served, made from the plantation scuppernong, James or Catawba grapes, or from the luscious blackberry.  In the quarters was served a wonderful repast to the entire colored population, and their gayeties were shown in dancing the “double shuffle,” the “break down,” the “chicken in the bread tray,” and the “pigeon wing,” followed by the “cake walk.” Up in the Mansion the family and guests probably engaged in the Virginia Reel or other forms of dancing.

Until New Years’ Day, the festivities would continue, a party at every plantation within riding distance, each house overflowing with merriment. A plantation Christmas would not be complete without a fox hunt, for “to ride with the hounds” was one of the accomplishments necessary to the planter and his sons. Space forbids further description of the happiness of life on an antebellum plantation in the South, but many of our Southern writers have given indelible pictures of the bond between master and slave, which was unique, will go down as an example of understanding affection.  Without trying to condone the rare case of unkindness from planters toward their slaves, on the whole they were well treated and the hearts of the two races were closely knit in the old plantation system.

There was a personal interest in the heart of the planter and his family for these dusky folks who belonged to them. And they had a pride in their slaves that was reciprocated by them, who felt that their “White Folks” were better than any others. In writing of the race problem (after the Sixties) Henry W. Grady of Georgia said: “As I recall my old plantation home, the spirit of my old Black Mammy from her home above the skies, looks down to bless me, and through the tumult of the night the sweet music of her crooning, as she held me in her arms and lead me smiling to sleep.”  One writer says: “The old plantation life is gone, but in that era of the Old South were found the very finest and highest types of loyalty and of patriotism that America will ever know.”

(Plantation Life in the Old South (excerpt), Lucy London Anderson, The Southern Magazine, May 1934, page 10)

The North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com

Obama Mentions Himself 63 Times – At Someone’s Funeral


 I, Me, My: Obama At His Narcissistic Best

Obama used the funeral for Hawaii senator Daniel Inouye to talk about himself. In the short 1,600 word speech, Obama used the word “my” 21 times, “me” 12 times, and “I” 30 times.

 

Quotes on Sandy Hook



Why the AR-15 - Heavily armed men are surgical in their ability to subjugate. They can kick down doors, separate family members, kill one person, while yelling at another, rape women and engage in all kinds of mayhem that is largely confined to the intended target. Machine guns, tanks, nuclear weapons, jet planes, drones, etc., are not surgical weapons. They simply destroy or not... Armed men on the ground are needed to do tyranny correctly. Remove the ability of armed men to function, and you've greatly increased the cost of imposing tyranny on society, no matter what other fancy toys a government has.
Mark P., comment at amnation.com

The NRA has finally thrown down the marker on the media as well, excoriating (and justly so) the media's propensity to dance on dead bodies, especially the dead bodies of children, providing the very attention that the sick bastards crave... as to how to pay for the armed security in our schools? That's easy: Fire one administrator per school and use that person's salary.
Karl Denninger at market-ticker.org

The govt's last big gun grab was during the Bush administration as a response to Hurricane Katrina. The govt sent Natl Guardsmen with a list of registered gun owners and went house to house on that list confiscating firearms.   It wasn't until much after that news of this came out.
Raymond Hessel, comment at zerohedge.com

The increased hysterics we're seeing from the media is their horror at the dawning realization that a very large and statistically significant number of Americans will never, ever give up their guns, not even if Washington arranges to have a kindergarten shot up every single day.  It unsettles them deeply to recognize that the mere fact of Obama holding office scares more people than elementary school massacres.
Vox Day at voxday.blogspot.com

I can't keep up with who is supposed to be the enemy of the hour. Why don't we just say the enemy of the people is whosoever opposes the government's political aims in one fashion or another. That should cover it.
Texas Arcane at vault-co.blogspot.com

There are no security steps that we are willing to tolerate as a free society that would make it impossible, or even substantially more difficult, for a motivated deranged person to shoot up an elementary school.
Warren Meyer at coyoteblog.com

The most important way of clearing intellectual space for fake scholarship and culture is to marginalise the concept of truth... There is a way of debating that disregards the truth of another’s words, since it is concerned to diagnose them, to discover ‘where they are coming from’, and to reveal the emotional, moral and political attitudes that underlie a given choice of words... It expressly set itself against the idea of objective truth, giving a variety of arguments for thinking that truth is a negotiable thing, that what matters in the end is which side you are on.
Roger Scruton at aeonmagazine.com

If you libs want to repeal the Second Amendment, say so. Start a movement. Marshal your lobbying groups. Put-up or shut-up. Or don't put-up and just shut-up. That's okay, too. 
Selwyn Duke at americanthinker.com

Sen. Dianne Feinstein acknowledged that in writing the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban she and Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell perused a copy of Gun Digest and selected what they thought were the *scariest looking* guns and/or features to list in the ban.
Chris Meissen, comment at motherjones.com 

Mayor Bloomberg and President Obama, along with many others have, thus far successfully, demanded that you intentionally refuse to defend your child's right to life as soon as that child enters a school—and they then attempt to compel you, by law, to have that child attend some form of school!
Karl Denninger at market-ticker.org

The gun control movement is dying.  It has been for quite some time.  While it will never entirely go away, it has been steadily sliding towards irrelevance.  The horrific murders in Connecticut will not change that... Our county has had a debate on guns and the gun control side lost that debate big-time... The antis and their media allies will continue their shrieking and teeth-gnashing, further embarrassing themselves and accelerating the movements political demise.
Jacob Rieper at gunpoliticsny.com

National conversation on guns - This conversation and compromise is basically saying you guys will give up something, we're just going debate how much. No. We had that conversation and you lost. A better opener would be to repeal all gun laws then start over.
saysuncle.com

Blood II

 

In reporting the Sandy Hook School massacre, the major news media again showcased the sorry state of professional, i.e., paid journalism. By assembling their misreporting in one place we can arrive at an imagined scenario which manages to get everything wrong, including the identity of the perpetrator:
The shooter, 24 year old Ryan Lanza of Hoboken New Jersey, had argued with four staff members at the school the day before the murders, all of whom are among the victims. His mother, Nancy Lanza, was a teacher at Sandy Hook School. Lanza, the father of one of the students, was buzzed past security and got into an argument with staff at the front office. He then used guns he'd acquired legally to kill staff and students, targeting his mother's classroom. Lanza also killed his father, and his girlfriend is missing.
As late as Wednesday the news media couldn't put together end-to-end accounts that agreed with verifiable facts, or each other. As Paul Roberts notes:
art-link-symbol-tiny-grey-arrow-only-rev01.gif News reports indicate that the accused dead gunman, whom no one can interrogate, if he is indeed the culprit, killed the children with handguns, not with an "assault rifle" left in the car, but that the medical examiner said the children were killed with rifle shots. The discrepancy is obvious. Either the news reports are incorrect, the medical examiner is wrong, or someone other than Adam Lanza shot the children.
and as Niall Bradley at Veterans Today says:
art-link-symbol-tiny-grey-arrow-only-rev01.gif Listed among the slain school teachers and administrative staff was the school principal, 47-year-old Dawn Hochsprung. Right here we encounter our first problem:
Sandy Hook School Principal Dawn Hochsprung told The Bee that a masked man entered the school with a rifle and started shooting multiple shots - more than she could count - that went "on and on."
The Newtown Bee, December 14, 2012 [web site page since deleted]
How could the principal have survived to give this statement to local press describing what happened ... if she was one of the first to be killed?
In one excess of Mao Envy, police issued this bizarre threat to those who dare deviate from from the approved narrative:
Anyone who posts fake material about the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School or killer Adam Lanza could face arrest, Connecticut State Police spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance said at a press conference Sunday.
Christine Roberts at nydailynews.com

More @ Ol' Remus

In Defense of the Second Amendment

 
 
 Certainly worth the read, though I don't agree with everything.

I want to go over in considerable detail the fundamental issues of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution: the right to keep and bear arms.

There is a great deal of emotional commitment in the United States to one of two extreme positions: (1) the right of every non-felon adult citizen of the United States to own any weapon he chooses, and (2) the right of the government of the United States to outlaw the ownership of firearms.

I am hard core. I would extend this right to convicted felons who have served their time or have made restitution to their victims. I would not let the federal government revoke this fundamental right of citizenship.

To understand the Second Amendment, we need to go back to something like the beginning.

FEUDALISM AND POLITICAL SOVEREIGNTY

More @ Gary North

Gregory Mocks LaPierre for Proposing Armed Guards, but Sends Kids to High-Security School

 

Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC—posted a job opening for a night shift police officer on Nov. 28, so they could have protection around the clock. 

School Obama's Daughters Attend Has 11 Armed Guards 

VERBATIM

David Gregory mocked the NRA's Wayne LaPierre for proposing that armed guards be at every school in America. But the NBC host seems to have no problem with armed guards protecting his kids everyday where they attend school in Washington, D.C.

"You proposed armed guards in school. We'll talk about that in some detail in a moment. You confronted the news media. You blamed Hollywood and the gaming industry. But never once did you concede that guns could actually be part of the problem. Is that a meaningful contribution, Mr. LaPierre, or a dodge?," asked Gregory.

Later the host suggested that guns don't prevent violence in schools (he cited the mass shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech). "But you would concede that, as good as an idea as you think this is, it may not work. Because there have been cases where armed guards have not prevented this kind of massacre, this kind of carnage. I want you would concede that point, wouldn't you?," Gregory pleaded.

The NBC host would go on the rest of the segment to suggest that armed guards might not be effective in preventing mass murders at school. Which is perhaps an interesting theoretical argument.
But when it comes to Gregory's own kids, however, they are secured every school day by armed guards.

The Gregory children go to school with the children of President Barack Obama, according to the Washington Post. That school is the co-ed Quaker school Sidwell Friends.

According to a scan of the school's online faculty-staff directory, Sidwell has a security department made up of at least 11 people. Many of those are police officers, who are presumably armed.
Moreover, with the Obama kids in attendance, there is a secret service presence at the institution, as well.

The Twelve Days of Christmas carol explained

 
VERBATIM

When you hear or sing the Christmas carol “The 12 Days of Christmas” have you ever wondered what in the world leaping lords, French hens, swimming swans, and especially the partridge that won't come out of the pear tree have to do with Christmas? I had read this several years ago and had forgotten I still had it so I am sharing it with you this Christmas week just in case you have never heard or read this explanation of the lyrics.

From 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone during that era wrote this carol as a catechism song for young Catholics. It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning plus a hidden meaning known only to members of their church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality which the children could remember.


-The partridge in a pear tree was Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary.

-Two turtle doves symbolize the two books of the Holy Bible the Old and New Testaments.

-Three French hens stood for the trinity, God the Father; God the Son; and God the Holy Ghost.

-The four calling birds were the four gospels of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke & John.

-The five golden rings recalled the Torah or Law, the first five books of the Old Testament.

-The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation.

-Seven swans a-swimming are the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit - Prophesy, Serving, Teaching, Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership, and Mercy.

-The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes.

-Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit - Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control.

-The ten lords a-leaping were the ten commandments.

-The eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful disciples.

-The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in the Apostles' Creed.
 


Chaplain Alan Farley D.D.

NC Walter Jones on an impeachable offense

 

U.S. Reps. Walter Jones, R-N.C., and Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., along with retired senior defense intelligence officer Col. Walter P. Lang and the Veterans for Peace today said Congress must be consulted before Barack Obama would send American troops into Syria.

Or else.

At a press conference, Jones discussed his resolution to oppose American involvement in Syria without first consulting Congress.

His resolution, H.Con. Res. 107, expresses “the sense of Congress that the use of offensive military force by a president without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution.”

Jones was responding to the growing potential for direct American involvement in Syria to support the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.

Just as he was one of the few Republicans opposed to the war in Iraq, Jones again expressed his opposition to a war that would be conducted without the approval of Congress.

It is Congress, after all, that the Constitution entrusts to make a decision regarding war, he said.

More @ WND

I Forgive You and My Apologies

Via Nancy
 


A time of reflection is needed for me as a veteran of the State’s war against Iraq considering we can now celebrate the official one year anniversary of American forces "pulling out". Of course, many of you reading this know there is an embassy in Baghdad the size of the Vatican, hundreds of advisors, and thousands more mercenaries to maintain its Mesopotamian outpost. Reflecting on one of the most blatant atrocities in all of history, I have realized I need to forgive those who attempted to kill me and formally apologize to the Iraqi people. 

First, let it be said that I now fully understand why they tried to kill us. We patrolled your streets in 68-ton rolling death-creator (M1A1 Tank) looking for those deemed "insurgents" or in reality simply opposed to us doing this sort of thing. We sat and spied on their homes through my main gun’s sight while they went about your daily business in fear; hoping we wouldn’t pull the trigger. I can also only imagine being on the other side a gargantuan turret traversing, looking for something to murder. Just like the sounds of drone’s flying above children in Pakistan cause them to "scream in terror", so did the sounds of our tanks. Our tank tracks ruined their farm and grazing lands simply because of our want to take a short cut to an over watch position. Either as a result of our unwelcome presence and the destruction of life and property that necessarily follows it or the events that I have just described; they placed an improvised explosive device (IED) between our old tank tracks in the middle of the desert. 

During late January 2007 my tank and our wing tank left our position where we provided over watch for a supply route that was a hotspot for IED placement. Fearing we would hit yet another IED on this road, we took alternative route through the desert back to return to our command operating post for re-supply. However, we were silly enough to follow our old tracks that we had left a month ago. They were smart enough to know that we’d travel back through this area. The first tank passed through a cut in a line of hills and we followed. The 500-lbs bomb detonated, destroyed my tank, and seriously injured everyone but me. Every marine who witnessed the aftermath the destruction had no idea how we made it out alive. Of course, I was angry with the "Other" for a long time and was ready to re-enlist for the slaughterhouse of Afghanistan. Luckily, I had a change of heart and I now understand why they tried to kill us. I forgive them. If some invading force came into my backyard I, like every other American, would respond in a similar manner. 

To the Iraqi People:

More @ LRC

Four firefighters shot, two dead after shooter guns down crew battling to Webster, N.Y., Christmas Eve house blaze

New York firefighters were called to the upstate New York blaze on Lake Road about 5:30 a.m. Authorities said there could be one or more shooters Monday morning.

article_firefighters_1224 


A gunman shot four volunteer firefighters and killed two of them at the scene of a house fire in the upstate New York town of Webster on Monday morning, officials said.

The Monroe County Sheriff's Office evacuated the neighborhood after at least one shooter exchanged gunfire with an officer who first responded to the scene near the Lake Ontario shore east of Rochester. The Christmas Eve blaze burned three homes and a car as firefighters fought flames alongside cops searching for the shooting suspect or suspects.

The West Webster Fire Department, a mix of volunteer and paid firefighters, was called to put out a single house fire along Lake Road just after 5:30 a.m. But as the blaze spread to two other homes and a vehicle, firefighters were forced back amid chaos when a shooter started gunning down their colleagues, Sheriff Patrick O’Flynn said.

He had no other information on the shootout.

Two died in the attack, but two others with gunshot wounds were listed in guarded condition at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester. An update on their condition was expected Monday afternoon.

More @ The NYDN

Deport British Citizen Piers Morgan for Attacking 2nd Amendment


Whistling in the wind, but since the left is stating not many have signed, I thought I'd put it up.