Tragedy as North Carolina judge dies in front of his wife and children trying to save drowning woman at beach

Roundabout via  NC Links

Rip currents can get anyone.  The only time I was caught in one was in San Clemente after I had been Scuba diving for many years, but even with that experience, I briefly panicked, but fortunately remembered to simply swim parallel to the shore.  It can't be emphasized too much, as the strongest swimmer in the world will drown trying to best them.

Authorities say 54-year-old Mitchell McLean died Wednesday while trying to help a husband and wife struggling in the water. McLean was the chief District Court judge for Wilkes, Ashe, Alleghany and Yadkin counties

A North Carolina judge vacationing on the beach with his family died yesterday after he heroically leaped into the sea to save a woman experiencing difficulties.

Authorities said that 54-year-old Mitchell McLean perished trying to help a husband and wife struggling in the water.

The woman he was trying to save, 55-year-old Mary Ann Galway later died in hospital and her husband, Edward John Galway, 59 was treated before being released on Wednesday afternoon.

Chief District Court Judge Mitchell 'Mitch' McLean of Wilkesboro was pronounced dead following the tragic rescue attempt at Sunset Beach on the Southeastern North Carolina coast.

McLean dashed into the waters to aide Edward Galway as he was trying to bring his wife to shore after she became trapped in a strong rip current that was dragging her out to sea.

The judge, who had worked for 15-years as a public servant was on vacation at the popular beach with his wife and children and received CPR on the shore after being pulled from the sea but could not be resuscitated.

'Upon arrival, two of those individuals were in cardiac arrest on the shore,' said Brunswick County Emergency Management Director Anthony Marzano to Star News Online.

'The other was unconscious and unresponsive.'

More @ USA-UK Online

Shocking Alleged Video: Islamists Throw Morsi Opponents Off High Wall, Killing One (GRAPHIC)

The religion of peace........

Egyptian activists posted video on YouTube Saturday purporting to show Egyptian youths being thrown off a high wall situated on the roof of a building then being beaten in the head with sticks. 

According to Al Arabiya, the incident took place during clashes between supporters and opponents of ousted President Mohammed Morsi.

The Middle East news agency writes that the perpetrators are Islamist supporters of Morsi.

In the video, four young men are shown on the roof of a building, appearing to seek safety atop a high wall on the roof. Other activists can be seen congregating on the roof below them, one of whom is fully bearded and holding a large black Al-Qaeda flag in his back pocket.

More @ The Blaze

The Meat of It

Security Cameras Catch Mystery Break-In At State Department Whistleblower's Law Firm

The offices of a Dallas law firm representing a high-profile State Department whistleblower were broken into last weekend. Burglars stole three computers and broke into the firm's file cabinets. But silver bars, video equipment and other valuables were left untouched, according to local Fox affiliate KDFW, which aired security camera footage of the suspected burglars entering and leaving the offices around the time of the incident.

The firm Schulman & Mathias represents Aurelia Fedenisn, a former investigator at the State Department's Office of the Inspector General. In recent weeks, she raised a slew of explosive allegations against the department and its contractors ranging from illicit drug use, soliciting sexual favors from minors and prostitutes and sexual harassment.

"It's a crazy, strange and suspicious situation," attorney Cary Schulman told The Cable. "It's clear to me that it was somebody looking for information and not money. My most high-profile case right now is the Aurelia Fedenisn case, and I can't think of any other case where someone would go to these great lengths to get our information."

More @ Obama Release Your Records

NC: Sheriff: man shot alleged burglar in self defense

Via NC Links

A man who shot an alleged burglar outside a Reidsville business was acting in self defense, Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page  said Monday afternoon.

Jesse Ray Walker, 28, of Reidsville, is dead. He was shot  early Monday morning outside Hall Well & Plumbing on Flat Rock Road by Steve Hall. According to Page, Hall lives next door and is vice-president of the company.


During a press conference Monday, Page said Walker was shot in the torso.

Hall was awakened by an alarm shortly after 3 a.m. When he went outside, Page said, he saw Walker and another man, Brandon Joe Hanks, pushing away rolls of copper.

Hall told the men to stop, Page said, at which point Walker charged at him. That’s when Hall fired.

More @ News & Record

Did Abolitionist Hatred of the South Cause the Civil War?

Via Bill

 

 A Conversation with Thomas Fleming, historian and author of A Disease in the Public Mind: A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War.

Thomas Fleming is known for his provocative, politically incorrect, and very accessible histories that challenge many of the clichés of current American history books.  Fleming is a revisionist in the best conservative sense of the word.  His challenges to accepted wisdom are not with an agenda, but with a relentless hunger for the truth and a passion to present the past as it really was, along with capturing the attitudes and culture of the times.

In The New Dealers’ War Fleming exposed how the radical Left in FDR’s administration almost crippled the war effort with their utopian socialist experimentation, and how Harry Truman led reform efforts in the Senate that kept production in key materials from collapse.

In The Illusion of Victory, Fleming showed that while liberal academics may rate Woodrow Wilson highly, that he may have been the most spectacularly failed President in history.  100,000 American lives were sacrificed to favor one colonial monarchy over another, all so Wilson could have a seat at the peace table and negotiate The League of Nations.  Instead, the result of WWI was Nazism and Communism killing millions for the rest of the century.

Fleming’s new book  A Disease in the Public Mind: A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War , exposes how inflammatory Abolitionist rhetoric and propaganda were a major cause of the Civil War.  Every other civilized nation outlawed slavery, despite economic and financial incentives, without killing a major part of its own population to do so.

While reading the book, I imagined if the pro-life movement was actually dominated by spokesmen who advocated killing abortionists.

Fleming is also a novelist, the mega-best-selling author of Officers’ Wives and Liberty Tavern, among many others.  My personal favorite is the all too convincing alternate history novel, The Secret Trial of Robert E. Lee which also explores the hatred of the Radical Republicans for all things Southern.

He is best known for his numerous books on the American Revolution, including the gigantic-selling coffee table book, Liberty!, which was the basis for the PBS series.  Fleming is a leader in the movement to restore the reputation of the Founders– especially George Washington– in the public square.

Fleming is a recent past President of the Society of American Historians. Recently we sat down for an interview about A Disease in the Public Mind, perhaps his most provocative book yet.

More @ PJ Media

Automatic Weapons: American vs. German

Re-post

Benghazi and the Navy SEALS

Via Billy

Jim Carrey Tweets Some Crow, Apologizes to Assault-Rifle ‘Fans’ for ‘Heartless Motherf—ers’ Comment

Via avordvet

 

Hey, there’s good news for gun-control opponents.

Jim Carrey is really, really sorry for calling them “heartless motherf—ers” a while back (among other things).

(Well, the world-famous actor and comedian sees these folks as “asslt rifle fans” rather than gun-control opponents. But you get the drift.)

And besides…he is so, so very sorry:

More @ The Blaze

CIA lied about its knowledge of Oswald's ties to Cuban Intelligence Agency

 

Lee Harvey Oswald had closer ties to Cuba's intelligence agency in the months before his fatal shooting of John F. Kennedy than previously known, according to a new book by a former CIA analyst.

Furthermore, the CIA lied about its knowledge of those ties to the Warren Commission that was tasked with investigating the crime, according to Brian Latell, the CIA's national intelligence officer for Latin America from 1990 to 1994 and author of the book "Castro's Secrets: Cuban Intelligence, the CIA, & the Assassination of John F. Kennedy," due out on July 9.

Cuba also hid what it knew about Oswald, writes Latell, citing a CIA wiretap of a conversation between two Cuban secret service agents he uncovered in declassified archives.

"I am now convinced that Oswald was engaged with the Cubans," Latell told Reuters.

While he is careful not to suggest Oswald killed Kennedy on instructions from Havana, Latell says the new evidence confirms a widely held belief that Oswald was motivated to kill Kennedy by a fervent desire to impress Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

More @ Newsmax

California prison doctors sterilized women to cut welfare costs

Via Horace

 

This was done in Virginia for women who kept having babies while on welfare during some of the years my father was a Country Doctor.

California prison doctors sterilized almost 150 women over a four-year period because they didn’t want the state to have to provide welfare funding to any children they might have in the future, one of the top doctors admitted this week.

California taxpayers spent $147,460 on the procedures between 1997 and 2010. ”Over a 10-year period, that isn’t a huge amount of money,” Dr. James Heinrich, the OB-GYN at Valley State Prison for Women, told the Center for Investigative Reporting, “compared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children – as they procreated more.”

Heinrich’s argument recalls progressive Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who declared “three generations of imbeciles are enough” in the opinion he wrote for the majority in Buck vs Bell (1927), in which the Supreme Court ruled that women could be forcibly sterilized.

More @ Washington Examiner

Actual Bank Robbery In Detroit

Via Billy

No Crimes, No Shame, No Responsibility

Via Bill

 

 Our government is a mess. Once-free Americans now feel small and helpless before the bureaucracy’s massed power and high-handed actions. We are angered and baffled by the indifference of our elected leaders to the broader public interest, and we are fed up with the orchestrated barrage of government propaganda. Today we can hardly escape the smug faces of Hollywood airheads. If they aren’t trying to sell us perfume or underwear or turning in third-rate performances in cinematic flops, they’re trying to tell us how great the State’s socialist policies are. Accolades to the end of freedom are galling and the lies our government promotes egregious, yet we can’t seem to make the criminals pay for their crimes. The president and his closest advisors have been dodging responsibility for their misdeeds all their lives and continue to do so. Our loyal oppositionists, meanwhile, are altogether too loyal. Except for a minority of the righteous, our Republican representatives are unable to wage a war on ideas because they don’t have any.

More @ Patriot Update

Ron Paul Explains His Forthcoming Ron Paul Channel

Making Sense: A Guide to Our Times

 

In 1950 America was conservative, prosperous and, superficially anyway, happy. The war had been won. America had no competition of any kind anywhere. Calm prevailed. The races lived separately with little conflict. Men went to work and women stayed home to raise the kids. The schools saw their job as teaching reading, grammar, spelling, and arithmetic.

Divorce was almost unheard of, bastardy—as it could then be called—close to zero. Drugs, pornography, free love and perversion—as homosexuality was then said to be—were at most distant rumors. Perhaps they could be found in Paris and New York, where such exotics as William Burroughs and Henry Miller abode. These things were mere frissons around the edges.

But change came. Women wearied of substantially empty lives in the suburbs, making peanut butter sandwiches and perhaps secretly drinking themselves silly. They wanted to be lawyers and biologists. It made sense. No moral or legal principle prevented it. Men didn’t want to be Little League slaves, so why should women? The country could use their intelligence. Anyway, it was their business.

So women went wholesale into the workforce. Which meant wholesale out of the home. Thus the latchkeys came into being, unsupervised and wondering whether their parents cared.

Next it was thought desirable to make divorce easier.

More @ Fred On Everything

NC: “It’s very offensive.......to just promote....... only white history month......”

Oh, really?  But it's OK to just promote black history month, correct?  Hypocritical liberals.

Officials in a small North Carolina town received an earful of complaints from some spectators over an Independence Day parade float festooned with racially-charged language.

Local farmer Donnie Spell drove a green John Deere tractor with the Confederate flag hitched to the back. The makeshift float was pulling a wooden wagon with a red, white and blue sign on the side reading “white history month” and, just below, “HUG WTE PPL” in all capital letters.

Spell, who is a frequent entrant in the July 4th parade as well as the local Christmas parade, was decked out in a white baseball cap and a shirt in the design of the American flag.

More @ The Daily Caller

Plates from WiscoDave

                                                    

III to III – Affordable body armor plates

I received this from Sandman after asking him if he knew of any other militia units that needed plate.
Please note that this effort has really little to do with me. Each and everyone of you is helping provide this plate.

III to III. This is a hard concept for many to understand; I hope we get over it before we wish we had.
You've got my back, I've got yours. Passing you a needed mag in a fight isn't charity - it's Brotherhood.

WiscoDave

Patriots,

 

I have already told WiscoDave, how much we appreciate his efforts to get us up-armored.

 

He is in the process of suiting up over a dozen Militia members with plates that they otherwise would not be able to purchase. He is literally saving lives, when the dancing starts. The funds that my folks save on armor will be going to upgrade other unit capabilities. He is hard-headed and refuses to allow us to even pay postage.

 

I am in touch with other units who consider themselves III, even though they may not follow the blogs and politics.

 

I am pushing them to start buying from Dave while we still can. They are as hard-headed as he is, and don't want to be accused of taking "charity" or "Hand outs" I am explaining the III to III concept to them, and reminding them that

 

Sandman

North Carolina Plantation Labor Relations Before Reconstruction

The North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial

“Unsurpassed Valor, Courage, and Devotion to Liberty”

www.ncwbts150.com

“The Official Website of the North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission”

They are our kin

Kemp Battle

   Allen Battle
 

North Carolina Plantation Labor Relations Before Reconstruction

“On the Walnut Creek plantation I had Allen Battle, one of our slaves, in charge. He was a fine looking man, one-fourth white, as honest and honorable as ever lived and a very good farmer. His father was black, his mother a mulatto.  Allen when young was the playmate of the sons of his master.  When he grew older he advanced to the dignity of foreman . . . Allen [by will came to ownership by] my wife and was advanced to the dignity of overseer, about eighteen hands, as the workers were called, being placed under his charge. 

Allen died worth about $2,000, leaving me exchequer of his will. His wife Sukey never had a child. He bequeathed to her all he had but requested me to keep the money in my hands and pay over to her whatever she should ask for.  “If she gets it all in hand,” he said, “her kinfolks will eat her up.” 

She tried the plan of living with one of them and they began at once to eat her up. They persuaded her to buy a $200 horse and other things too costly for her station. After two years she took alarm and came back to my care, rented a house at Flagmarsh, and lived economically. 

When she died, she still had about $800, which was distributed among her kin, so numerous that the share of one was only about $3.50.  As a matter of law she could have called for all the fund [I held] but both she and her kin regarded the provision in the will as a legal check on extravagant expenditures.  I was really vested with moral but not legal power.”

(Memories of an Old time Tarheel, Kemp Plummer Battle, UNC Press, 1945, pp. 126-127)

White House Pays $53 Million for Voter ID in Kenya While Opposing Same in US

Via Billy

 

Ever since Obama stole the 2008 election with rampant voter fraud, Republicans have been trying to pass laws that require a photo ID in order to vote.  President Obama, and his puppet, Attorney General Eric Holder have fought against every one of those voter ID laws.  They claim that they discriminate against poor black voters that are not able to obtain a valid identification card, even though they are able to obtain enough ID to get welfare and food stamps.

 

In August 2012, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney supported Obama’s stance against voter ID when he said:

“And on the voter ID case, I can tell you that, as you know, this administration believes it should be easier for eligible citizens to vote – to register and vote. We should not be imposing unnecessary obstacles or barriers to voter participation.”

In a typical case of Obama hypocrisy, we learn that the US government gave the Kenyan government $53 million to help fund a program called ‘My ID My Life.’ 

More @ Minutemen News

SFO Plane Crash Caught on Video

Breitbart

How North Carolina receives carpetbaggers Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly

Via Craig

 

One of the stated aims of the Giffords/Kelly tour was to visit states where vulnerable Senators voted for or against the Toomey/Manchin gun control bill. Senator Kay Hagan, (D-NC) voted for T/M and is one of the most vulnerable Senators in the 2014 election. I saw no evidence at all that Hagan made any attempt to meet with Giffords or Kelly during this visit. This matches what happened in North Dakota where Democrats distanced themselves from her politically as well as physically.

North Carolina is shedding its reputation as The Massachusetts of Dixie when it comes to gun laws. We are poised to end a bunch of stupid prohibitions with House Bill 937. And if there’s one thing that North Carolinians can’t stand it’s outsiders coming here to tell us how to run our lives. 

Strange how a kid from California can move here and go all native, huh? 

All you Yankee Carpetbaggers, GO HOME!

More @ A NC Gun Blog

Gun free zone

 

July 8, 2013 – Families in the United States can now use a cell phone app to stay out of areas that may have been targeted by criminals planning a mass shooting.  GunFreeZone LLC. has released a cell phone app called GunFreeZone that warns people when they enter any store, theater, government building, or other public area where law abiding citizens have been disarmed but criminals may not have been disarmed.  This free cell phone app can be downloaded at the company website www.GunFreeZoneApp.com or directly from iTunes or the Google Play store.

Once downloaded, the app uses the GPS on the phone to find the nearest 20 public locations, and displays them in both map and list form.  Information on which stores are firearm friendly and which are gun free zones is easily communicated by a simple color code – stores that allow law abiding citizens to carry firearms are marked green while gun free zones are marked red.  If a store is not marked yet, the user can mark the location as gun safe or gun free themselves and immediately share that information with everyone else in the country.

John Peden, founder of GunFreeZone noted that, “Between 1982 and 2012, there were over 60 mass shootings in the United States.  Only one happened in an area that was not a gun free zone.  I don’t shop in gun free zones and I encourage others to do the same because it’s not safe.”   Peden further adds, “If we as a society seek to keep people safe, especially our children, gun control is not the way to go about it.”

“Information about the real-life impact of disarming law abiding citizens is vital – not biased or bought-and-paid-for studies in which the outcome is already known before the project even starts,  but factual, non-partisan data is the best tool there is” says Karl Hale, co-founder of GunFreeZone.  He stated further “We’re not talking about some imaginary benefit to society that might materialize decades down the road –when you mark a store on our app today, you may literally save somebody’s life today.”

“Information about the real-life impact of disarming law abiding citizens is vital.  Criminals want soft targets; they want to attack people that are defenseless.  Credible research bears this out, while some new studies funded by anti-gun groups defy logic and the preponderance of evidence,” says Karl Hale, co-founder of GunFreeZone.  He stated further “We’re not talking about some imaginary benefit to society that might materialize decades down the road –when you mark a store on our app today, you may literally save somebody’s life today.”

The GunFreeZone app is the largest database of gun free zones and firearm friendly stores in the world with over 300,000 locations marked by over 34,000 users.  The app launched in final release on March 14^th, 2013.


 If you would like more information about the GunFreeZone app or to schedule an interview, please contact John Peden through his cell phone at 801-372-5997 or by e-mail at john@GunFreeZoneApp.com

Egyptian Tells Obama To Leave Them Alone - July 2013

Via LH

North Carolina League of the South Legislative Update

 

The current session of the General Assembly has yet to wrap up, and many big ticket items such as the budget have yet to be worked out.  But with just a few weeks remaining before adjournment there is plenty of material to conduct a proper analysis of what the past 6 months have meant for North Carolina.  In short the Republican wave that swept North Carolina has failed to produce a fundamental change in the way business will be conducted for the foreseeable future.  It didn’t have to be this way.  With control of the Governor’s Mansion, supermajorities in both chambers of the General Assembly, and control of the state’s judiciary system the Republicans had all the keys to the kingdom.  But by even their own expectations they have fallen short.  Four fundamental facts explain this shortfall.

1.     Raleigh Ain’t Charlotte:  Pat McCrory swept into office with big numbers and high hopes from Republicans desperate to break a 20 year drought in the Governor’s Mansion.  But his adjustment from City Hall has been a work in progress from Day 1.  The main difference is that in Charlotte McCrory had to govern by consensus in a Democrat-leaning town.  The Democrat-controlled City Council was of much the same mindset as “Mayor Pat” in terms of quality of life issues and big dollar projects.  Life in Raleigh is much different.

2.      

Part of the great success of the Republican wave in 2010 meant that Governor Pat faced a Republican legislature that had  had 2 years to get used to its new power.  The folks down Jones Street were already used to conducting business while ignoring the prerogatives of Governor Perdue, and had their agenda and expectations ready to go on Day 1.  Governor Pat has yet to master the levers of power in dealing with the General Assembly and has stuck with reforming the executive departments under his direct control.  Time will tell whether or not he can gain solid footing heading into the fall and next year’s Short Session but his first 6 months have been quite the learning experience.

2.   Dueling Houses:  The first two years of Republican control of Jones Street saw only slight hints of daylight between the House and the Senate.  Facing down Governor Perdue meant that they had to coordinate strategy in facing a common intransigent foe.  The Republican sweep in 2012 freed the majorities to pursue their own agendas, often stepping on each other’s toes in the process.  Dueling budgets along with dueling tax reform plans have led to frayed tempers between the House and Senate leaderships, with Governor McCrory frequently siding with the House.

The Senate under Phil Berger has tended to be the more ambitious and unabashed conservative of the two bodies.  With nose-breaker Tom Apodaca at the head of the Rules Committee the attitude of the Republican Senate has been take no prisoners.  The House on the other hand is taking a more measured approach in the hopes of not moving too far beyond public opinion.  The fact that Speaker Thom Tillis has already announced his candidacy for the US Senate and that Berger is also considering a run cannot help the tensions between the two chambers.

3.   Spirited Backlash:  Barack Obama’s strong performance in North Carolina belies the fact that the state Democratic Party organization has been effectively kneecapped.  The loss of the General Assembly in 2010 followed by the loss of the Governor’s Mansion in 2012 has effectively robbed the Democrats of the special interest money that fueled their longtime dominance in Raleigh.  Coupled with the redistricting process that has all but assured Republican control of the General Assembly till 2020 the Democrats are still scrambling for a way back to relevance.

Nature abhors a vacuum and this has allowed Rev. William Barber and the NAACP to effectively hijack the leadership of the opposition movement to the Republican agenda in Raleigh.  These elements represent the radical fringe of the liberal movement, but with the Democrats neutered for the moment they are gaining power.  While the “Moral Monday” outbursts are not likely to stymie the Republican’s agenda for the remainder of the session, they are likely to make Governor McCrory and Speaker Tillis more prone to pull their punches as the 2014 elections approach.  The danger of this backlash can be summed up thusly:  while the protestors represent the worst of the liberal/progressive movement, they are likely to be viewed sympathetically by a large enough section of the public should the GOP start to lose the favor of its base.

4.  Business as Usual:  Lastly the Republican’s in Raleigh are reverting to the method of exercising power that guided North Carolina under the Black/Basnight regime.  This consists of rewarding the key elements of the base (religious conservatives, 2^nd Amendment advocates, business supporters) while using power to ensure that special interest money keeps rolling in to finance the perpetuation of Republican control in Raleigh.  While state government has undergone a shift in the right direction, it will only march so far because to completely rock the boat risks the access to campaign cash needed to preserve the majority.  To put it plainly:  While the Republicans are willing to take the heat for measures that please the base they are unwilling to put issues like nullification on the table for fear that the center will not hold on top of the current backlash.

While North Carolina policy will likely continue a shift to the right, the Republicans have likely missed the best opportunity to enact true 10^th Amendment solutions to the problems faced by the Old North State.  Their hope is that the economy will generate enough job growth to signal their policies are working while maintaining the loyalty of the groups that got them in power.  November 2014 is a long ways off, but minus a dramatic shift in the GOP leadership in the state I believe that the past 6 months is about as good as it gets in Raleigh.

Social Media As An Intelligence Gathering Tool

Social media is a double-edged sword.

On one hand, we’re able spread our message of Liberty and resistance to tyranny.  On the other hand, what we say, when we say it, and where we say it tells more about us that most realize.  The federal regime is able to take all this information and build what’s called a “pattern of life” around it.

Let’s take Iraq for instance.  Had the entirety, even half, of Iraqi resistance group members – JAM/AAH/AQI/ISI/ISCI-BADR/KH/Naqshabandi/the list goes on – been on Facebook and Twitter posting photos and talking about what they were doing to or thinking about US/CF, we would have made short work of all of them.  Their networks would have been mapped overnight, we’d be targeting the leadership, the most vocal and the most widely followed, and we would have a novel of IP address that point to physical addresses where we can find these people.

It’s no secret that by surfing the FreeFor blogosphere, belonging to resistance/liberty groups on Facebook, and posting III% messages and news articles singles you out for your beliefs.  In fact, if DHS really is cataloging the prominent voices of the FreeFor/III% movement and their followers, they’re logging IP addresses and locations and the times of access; devices on which these sites are accessed; names, faces, and other photos; and network diagrams (the gist of which is displayed on this post’s picture).  (Fourth Amendment be damned, obviously.)  I wouldn’t for a second bet that it hasn’t happened to some of us.  Either way, the NSA is still likely collecting the external data of all our communications and web browsing for later consumption and analysis.  (See a previous post: On Persistent Surveillance written before the NSA leaks.)

More @ Guerrilla America

Well, that's where the other animals go in.......

Via Daily Timewaster

Selecting the right gun for teaching a new shooter

Via Oleg Volk

Learning to shoot can be stressful even for adults. Guns can be heavy, ranges are usually noisy, and managing recoil and muzzle blast requires concentration. The learning challenge is that much greater for kids who are often much smaller than adult shooters, may lack the strength to hold up a firearm or to operate some of its controls. Add to this shorter attention span and the impressionable nature of children and the first range trip becomes a high-stakes proposition for the coach. Start out wrong and the interest can quickly change to aversion. Here are the things to consider when picking out a firearm for your child's first range trip

More @ All Outdoor

Test: Technology to return a rocket back to Earth intact

Via Daily Timewaster

III CQB

 

We met yesterday in Mile Square Park near Long Beach and trained in the beautiful Southern California weather, in the shade of trees and the company of Patriots.

BonnieGadsden took point on gathering his Tribe and others in the area to make this happen, and he did a great job.  Not only did he do the administrative aspect of herding cats (that's us, Patriots!) he has also done a great job of surrounding himself with damned fine people who can be trusted to show up when help is needed.  A couple of folks not in BG's immediate Tribe attended as well, and I suspect the entire group has grown and will keep in touch.

Several Founders were in attendance, one to observe.  It is always humbling to meet our Founders and the supporters of not only the III Projects we have going, but also men and women who are true Patriots.  I thank you all.  In only our second CQB class, combined with my experience at King's Mountain, at Brock's spring PatCon, at Mercer when TL hosted a gathering, I am absolutely convinced that if we all carry a simple message in our hearts on a nationwide basis, and we work our tails off "Local, Local, Local", while taking every opportunity that presents itself to meet one another, even over great distances, the III can preserve Liberty.  I am convinced the numbers are there. 
Liberty doesn't need overwhelming forces on Her side, She only needs a small, hardcore, relentless, unyielding corps of Patriots who refuse to bend knee.  Just like the first time...

And I am meeting such Patriots across the country.

More @ III Percent Patriots

Dear Police

Via WRSA

Media still pushing Fast and Furious ‘failed gun-tracking operation’ line

Via WRSA

A Mexican police chief was killed earlier this year with a rifle traced back to the gun store at the center of the Fast and Furious “gunwalking” operation, Richard A. Serrano of The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday. The attack -- killing the chief and his bodyguard, and wounding his wife and a second bodyguard -- occurred in Jalisco, “suggesting that weapons from the failed gun-tracking operation have now made it into the hands of violent drug cartels deep inside Mexico,” Serrano wrote.

That terminology, along with the ubiquitous “botched gun sting,” has been the primary meme used by vulnerable government officials and their media water-carriers to deflect attention -- and dismiss as paranoid NRA/rightwing conspiracy theory any suggestion that intent existed to exploit Mexican crimes scene guns traceable to U.S. sources.

That’s despite whistleblower sources claiming in early January, 2011, that guns were being walked “to pad statistics.” It was through these sources that the story was investigated and reported by citizen journalists while “legitimate media” remained deliberately indifferent, until information coming to light could no longer be contained, prompting many “Authorized Journalists” to manage and spin it instead.

More @ Examiner

"It's Only Rain"

Via T