Daily Digest: Incongruity

1. COMMENT DELETED

2. He does make a good point that the Bill of Rights lacks supporters on issues other than Free Religion/Speech and Gun Rights. It is scary to think how there is a lack of organized movements to repeal the gross overreach of government.

   • Maher’s oblivious. A virtual army of lawyers, professors, and others fight to hold the line against further erosion of 4th Am. rights every day. My state has a stricter equivalent of the 4th, just as it has a less ambiguous version of the 2nd (no “militia” mumbling). Bill Maher is an ass. His perception about the other amendments is likely a result of the fact that he himself never comes in contact with the groups defending the other amendments. He’s busy floating in his pool, presumably stoned. He’s a board member of PETA, more concerned about animal rights than the 4th Amendment.

   • Yes, there needs to be an NRA for the rest of the Bill of Rights.

     Ropingdown is right, there are lots of lawyers defending the Constitution, but there’s no political lobby for it. That’s why there was hardly any political blowback from the passage of the NDAA, a law that’s maybe supported by 10-20% of the country.

     • There is an NRA for the rest of the Bill of Rights. It’s called the ACLU. They do a pretty good job, for the most part. They were one of the few liberal groups that were actually consistent in criticizing both the Bush and Obama administrations for their civil liberties abuses.

       • Carlos: I agree, but the ACLU doesn’t really participate in lobbying or mobilizations of voters or political donations or TV ads or any of the many other activities that make the NRA so successful at stopping legislation and making politicians take notice.

         The ACLU basically wins court cases… which is great, but not sufficient for fully protecting our freedom. Some policies can’t even be effectively challenged in court — for that, and more, we need political heft in DC. While the ACLU is respected, no politician, liberal or conservative, is afraid of its political power.

       • The ACLU is evil and should be destroyed.

       • Pat – how are they evil? I disagree with some of the things they do, but I think evil should be reserved for actual evil.

       • NAME ME ONE INSTANCE where the ACLU stood up for the Second Amendment. THEY DO NOT. They stand for the OTHER nine amendments in the BOR, but are notably HANDS OFF on the 2nd. It’s obviously they wish there were only nine amendments.

       • They defend garbage and have a strange secular liberal agenda.

     • Agreed, the ACLU fills this role. They seem to be pretty consistent, albeit with a bit of a leftward bent. Too bad we haven’t heard much from them about the 2A.

   • Also, our freedoms rise and fall together, you can’t separate-out the second amendment and expect it to be secure forever. Ultimately, more people will just end up saying things like: “Heck, the government reads and records all my email anyway, why shouldn’t we know what guns people have?!”

     • And that’s a huge concern. I try not to take a “these damn kids today” perspective, particularly because I’m fairly young, but it saddens me that the demand for privacy is evaporating with this generation.

       • After going through the permit process in New Jersey, hearing about the EO that made the border state gun registry, the TSA, and Stop and Frisk this damn kid is pretty pissed when the gov invades his privacy. Even if I’m one of the few my age who has actually read the constitution I’ll fight to protect it. Every part of it.

   • Actually he makes a lot of good points, but in Robert’s world, in which the Armed Intelligentsia finds it difficult to disagree, there are Good Jews and Bad Jews. Only one single thing separates the two, their position on gun rights.

     • That statement is a grammatical nightmare Mike, but the key takeaway for me is that you can’t tell the difference between being good or bad and being wrong or right. Robert doesn’t use any of those four words in his blurb, but he seems to be arguing a case for the latter rather than the former.

     • Bill Mahr and good points are mutually exclusive. Mahr is a fool and just another elitist with a huge yap.

     • Secular humanist, atheistic,antiAmerican libtard Jews are much different than the religious conservative jews.

3. Obama may shoot skeet at Camp David but the Palace of Westminister has a rifle range in the basement. (Not a lot of people know that.) Mystery over cost of House of Lords rifle range

   You just know that there’s a whole group of British aristocrats in Parliament shouting “Bloody hell, would someone put a muzzle on that tw@t? If he doesn’t STFU the serfs are going to realize that their betters are still armed!”

   • Come now! If the peasants started to revolt in a mob armed with stakes, torches, and pitchforks, those aristocrats need to be able to defend themselves!

   • The serfs know that. But they’re serfs. It doesn’t have any effect.

   • They would put a muzzle on him, but they banned everything with muzzles. Oops.

4. My God, I despise Bill Maher.

   I also should have learned by now to never read the NY times comments section. My blood pressure…

   • There is a reason the only conservative allow on that show is a quadriplegic. Because any right-of-center guest would beat Bill Maher to death with his bare handes before Bill could finsh the punchline on his opening joke.

     • Well, to be fair, there is Juan Williams at Fox. Each network has folks to play Washington Generals to their Harlem Globetrotters.

5. Is anyone else noticing the trend of (alleged) rocket launchers showing up at buy backs?

   • Has there been more than one?

   • It’s non-functioning. Since it’s Washington state, I’m going to guess:

     -Hyper realistic military replica that was used either in film or created by a hobbyist. After all, you got airsoft guns nowadays that are almost visually indistinct from the real steel.

     -A spent military tube that somehow made its way off of Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Maybe a soldier somehow smuggled a souvenir or a contractor got it off base.

     • It appears to be a FIM-92 Stinger SAM. My guess is “non-functioning” means that the BCU (Battery Coolant Unit) doesn’t work anymore.

       But with some TLC and a Destructive Device-classified missile, I bet you could down an aircraft.

       • It’s a training item used to familiarize troops with the handling of the launcher. Several have been turned in CA over the past few months.

       • They still pop up at the surplus store occasionally.

         It’s as threatening as a dummy grenade or one of those training 120mm rounds for those with a clue.

       • FTA: “The surface to air launcher was brought to the buyback and then purchased from a person in line for $100 by another citizen. Police took the already used, single use weapon until they could determine if it was safe and if the man could have it back.”

   • I was standing in line when I saw the police carrying that tube off. That brought out all the news photographers. There were probably a dozen cops standing around looking at the thing.
     I was there trading in a broken Raven .25cal for a gift card. Since I only paid something like $25 new I made a tidy profit off of that. And I managed to buy a nice post war Walther P38 for $100.
     There were probably 20-30 guys wondering around on the sidewalk holding “Cash for guns” signs. They probably scooped up as many guns as the police did. Cops didn’t really hassle them either. That will probably change the next time they do a buyback.

   • There’s demilled ones everywhere. Army surplus stores, various retailers like sportsmansguide sometimes. Here’s an expensive one I saw recently https://www.apexgunparts.com/product_info.php/products_id/2551

   • Far as I know all but the most recent prototypes (and thus not found spent in surplus stores) cannot be reloaded and fired, not that one shouldn’t try but that it is physically impossible to do so. So that one is a complete cry wolf situation. Gun control and demilled/spent rocket launcher tubes being sold as mantlepiece adornments are completely unrelated except insofar as the politicians may use the latter as a scapegoat to encourage more of the former. Any boots around feel free to correct me.

   • theyre empty LAW and AT-4 tubes, legal to have as far as i know.

     but typical californians wouldnt know their arsehole from a rocket launcher if one was thrown in front of them, so they just report rocket launchers being submitted. LOL. it gives the anti-gun elitists a feel good so they can stroke each others’ egos and pat each other on the back.

   • theyre empty LAW and AT-4 tubes, legal to have as far as i know.

     but typical californians wouldnt know their arsehole from a rocket launcher if one was thrown in front of them, so they just report rocket launchers being submitted. LOL. it gives the anti-gun elitists a feel good so they can stroke each others egos and pat each other on the back.

6. Nyt is upset the amu is teaching kids how to properly use firearms. Next thing you know they’ll be crying for a ban on the us army.

7. “KING OBUMA” believes we have the right to STFU and do as we’re told. Don’t questions our “GREAT DICKTATORS” special powers because he knows what’s best for us all.

8. Bill Maher is a pompous A**. and he’s ignorant and biggoted. But, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn nce in a while. most of the constitution is completely ignoired. and its a shame.

   • I agree. I watch the show because they often have on interesting people. Maher is the classic loudmouth who doesn’t do his homework, and gets off when people call him on his stupidity. But not too much, or the guests don’t get invited back. On the other hand, he is no stupider than other people unfamiliar with gun use research.

9. Not a huge Maher fan, but he has a point re: all those other amendments Gee Dubya dun done away with, with the full support of the pro-2A crowd in Congress.

   • Bill Maher creates his own facts so as to create the impression that his assertions have any validity. The in-crowd of the moment (Dem or Repub) has been adding intrusive security, often with no legislative sanction, since at least the early 1930’s. The power of that intrusion grew from cheap and often illegal wiretaps and ‘plants’ to massive mail ‘covers’ to computer databases to all-pervasive internet, cell-phone, and gps snooping. It has never retreated when the party in power changes. It began with the anti-communist panic at the end of WWI (see the history of the American Legion). The anti-communism theme was Hoover’s favorite, to the point that he even denied existence of the Mafia and the Commission. I, myself, was sent to fight communism (shoot communists). Shortly thereafter I was induced to buy lots of Communist Chinese goods. Wasn’t communism a problem after all? Was this announced but I missed it? Times change. Go figure. The question for the Patriot Act arrangements is the famous one: “Who will watch the Watchers?”

     • Roping and you others make excellent points, and there’s no question that Obama has done nothing to expand civil rights under Amendments 4, 5 and 6. That said, I think Maher’s point is that in this instance the people sounding off on 2A are being hypocritical, because they apparently don’t guard the others with such zeal.

     • Bing bang boom. I was all of 8 when slick willy made the big W house. And I knew quite clearly that he was just as much a fascist as the last one, and then when 9-11 hit like a year after W was debating Gore about not being the world’s policeman and taking away US citizen freedom, boom 9-12 patriot act. That was it for me, I can’t even breathe properly when I witness a deluded individual trying to explain the differences between repugnants and demtards and how one must be better or worse than the other.

   • And Obama hasn’t righted the wrongs Bush pushed through in the name of anti-terrorism.

     • Not only ‘not righted’ them, but expanded them…

       • Massively. The Obama administration codified the disappearing of Americans as official US policy with the NDAA.

10. Bill Maher makes an interesting point, but continually disparages the wrong section of the population. He hates gun owners and patritos. The fact of the matter is that the 2nd Amendment does in fact protect the others, as well as the populace it serves. I am a “gun nut,” but I am also concerned about the contuinual manner in which the government gathers and stores data on us. These measures may have been initially as a result of terrorist activity, but need re-examination desperately. This administration seems to be as capable of reducing themselves as they are at balancing a budget. Hey Patriot Act, we don’t need you, and you can store that in your databank forever.

    • The genie can NEVER be put back in the bottle. It is no longer “If” or “When”, it is present tense , Bluffdale Utah is online, a 1 million sq ft facility with a multi-million dollar electric bill and the ability to capture and colate All data

    • Membership in the NRA and the ACLU seems completely logical and complementary to me.

11. Here’s another excellent video for your viewing pleasure:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0o7YgiTFm4

    • Regarding the video by Mr. Mills. He lost me at “raise taxes.” We don’t need our schools to become prisons with someone from the govt. protecting them. It would be better and cheaper to arm teachers and other school staff and Mr. Mills could provide some training and ARs for the schools. The ultimate solution is to privatize every public school and get the govt. out of the indoctrination and de-education business. Govt. is the problem, not the solution. Someone needs to do a video that shows exactly how a semi-auto pistol, shotgun, and rifle work vs. full-auto that explains it in little words so the non-gun owner, politicians, and msm can understand. Demystify it and all that.

      Cheers,

      David
      USN Ret.

      • I don’t know about the necessity of privatization, but I do believe that schools should be de-industrialized. By that I mean that we shouldn’t have schools with thousands of kids crammed in and separated into such narrow age groups. As I recall, there were a lot of subjects that I was taught repeatedly throughout my years in public school, without much depth ever added. I think if our schools were split into smaller units with wider age groupings we might change the dynamics of some of our current educational failings.

        • CA_Chris. Check out “America’s Godly Heritage” on youtube. It’s in 6 parts I believe. Gives great stats on the decline of education in the public domain and the rise of private schools and home schooling and the corresponding rise in SAT scores for same. They rose to previous levels before the govt. took the Bible and prayer out of schools in 1962-63. It is eye opening. And the public schools situation has only worsened since the video was created.

          Best Regards,

          David

        • There is really no need for industrial age schools at all any more. Any kid with a connection could take any class (or view pre-recorded tutorials) from anywhere in the world. Schools spend tons of money on facilities, and tons of time just managing the kids. Imagine a situation where closer to 100% of resources were spent conveying information.

          As a bonus, we could break the hold socialists have on education. As it is, I spend hours each week going over my kids’ history and social studies texts, occasionally correcting outright misinformation, but very often filling in important events and concepts that get left out. Kids won’t get formal logic in US schools either, for the most part.

      • “Someone needs to do a video that shows exactly how (firearms) work … so the non-gun owner, politicians, and msm can understand.” Facts and logic are irrelevant to an emotional ideology. What’s needed is “documentaries” of women who explain that after they or someone they knew were the victim of violent crime, they saw the light and learned to defend themselves.

12. Venal? THIS is venal:

    How to Ban Guns: A step by step, long term process

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/21/1172661/-How-to-Ban-Guns-A-step-by-step-long-term-process

    • U think if you want to provide that link, at least also tell people that there is a poll question about banning guns right under the article. And the Daily Kos is definitely a liberal site, and the poll is 91% (5624 votes) AGAINST a ban, another 6% (372) saying a ban is communist, and only 2% (138) voting FOR the ban. Don’t raise the alarm without providing ALL the facts.

13. I find poetic that Fienstien (from the article link above)

    “You would think that, considering all the money Feinstein’s family has pocketed by waging global warfare while ignoring the plight of wounded American soldiers, she would show a smidgeon of shame and resign from the entire Senate, not just a subcommittee. Conversely, you’d think she might stick around MILCON to try and fix the medical-care disaster she helped to engineer for the vets who were suckered into fighting her and Bush’s panoply of unjust wars. ”

    is a crook and that she want to ban guns. Maybe she is afraid that if everyone found just how much of crook she really is that they may turn the guns on her. What scumbag at so many level this person is is unbelieveable!

14. Maher to me is alot like Rush or even Alex Jones. Honestly they all have good points from time to time that I agree with, but at the end of the day I tend to think they all can go f**k themselves.

    • Judging from their typical air of smug satisfaction, I assume they already do.

      • I am rolling on LoLerskates and flying in ROFLcopters sir.

      • Ah yes, and if Hitchens were still walking among us, he’d spark a Rothmans and toss back some Johnnie in agreement.

        • Way better than the way I said it.

        • I generally like Hitchens, except that he was one of the fools peddling the Kool-Aid in the run-up to the Iraq war. So much potential, but forever tarnished by the legacy that war which he so vocally supported. He also came across as more than a little xenophobic against Arabs, beyond his dislike for religion in general.

15. “Big lines at gun buyback, which nets a missile launcher”

    When I was in junior high school the local army navy store in Skokie Illinois sold the empty shells of the old style WW2 ‘pineapple’ hand grenades. I can only imagine how today’s high-drama mass media would spin anyone’s character who owned those paper weights.

16. “For all his intellectual firepower, professed love of liberty ”

    I really hope this is sarcasm. He’s dumb as a ****ing rock and no friend of liberty.

17. Big flame coming my way, but I admire Bill Maher. Occasionally I agree with him, often I don’t. But he always makes me think, and think hard. He’s often the antithesis of what government would have us all quietly believe is truth. This clip I agree with. To paraphrase, they chip away at your rights, little by little, never giving back. It’s the next revolution that takes the rights away from the government and puts them back in the hands of the people.

    • So then you agree that gun owners are the problem, and that gun owners are idiots?

      Not me. I find in the extremely rare instances that I agree with BM (and by that I’m using Bill Maher and Bowel Movement interchangably), I only need watch a few moments and watch him transition to “full retard.”

    • Do you also agree that western medicine is evil and useless? Maher is simply a contrarian. If he thinks conservatives like it, he hates it. Like every other talking head, it’s all a show to pander to his fans. At least Stewart and Colbert admit as such. Conservative talking heads only do it when they get in trouble.

18. I am looking forward to the stores being re-stocked with “personal defense weapons” (PDW)

    • I don’t care if it screams “Gamer”, I wants me a PS90 someday!

      • Forget the PS90, I want a real-deal P90. Definitely on my “if I’m ever wealthy enough to own a private compound in a second-tier country” list.

        • Ah, the Stargate gun (he types as an episode of Stargate: Atlantis plays in the background.)

          In the meantime, I’d settle for the ability to the SBR a PS90.

19. Allegedly, the Appleseed Project upon learning that Obama goes skeet shooting all the time has invited Obama to Appleseed for rifle shooting.

    • OMFG that is the best thing I’ve heard all day.

      If true, they need to make that a massively public invitation, with a press conference and prewritten copy for the news agencies!

20. Between my being a social liberal and cringing at all the stupid shit Maher says and being a strong 2a supporter and cringing at all the stupid shit the NRA says its a wonder I have time to even post on this damn websi

    • I get it! At least you haven’t lost your sense of humor.

21. Nunc Pro Tunc: The Coming Day of Burn Barrels and Blessings
    Monday, Jan 28, 2013
    This is a standing invitation to my fellow Americans: If congress ever enacts a law mandating the registration and/or a production ban of detachable magazine semiautomatic rifles then you are hereby invited to the town square of your local community. There, burn barrels will be set up and we will publicly burn Form 4473s, FFL Bound Books, state and local registration records, and the sales receipts for every firearm in the United States. On that same day, FFL holders and public officials holding electronic firearms records will simultaneously erase those records, permanently and irretrievably. (Using special file erasure software such as Blancco, X-Ways, and Stellar Wipe, or though the physical destruction of disk drives.)
    Spontaneous Gatherings, Spontaneous Combustion
    This burn barrel day–likely to be held the day after the President signs any new draconian legislation–will include speeches, public prayers, and the blessing of those who have gathered by ministers, rabbis, and priests.
    The core of the activities on that day will be stalwart public defiance of any new unconstitutional law(s), the open and notorious destruction of records that might be used to enslave us, and vocal public affirmations of solidarity of free men and women, in the face of tyranny. This will be a defining moment for America–a line drawn in the sand. We will forthrightly declare that we will not obey any unconstitutional law and that we will treat it dismissively, as if it had never been enacted — nunc pro tunc. We will pledge ourselves to the defense of liberty, both individually and collectively. We will vow that if ever called to jury duty, we will nullify any unconstitutional laws, vacating the charges against the accused, in accordance with our long-standing right as jurors. (See: http://www.FIJA.org.)
    The Law is On Our Side

We will publicly re-affirm some long standing precepts of American jurisprudence, to wit:
    “The General rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of it’s enactment and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted.
    Since an unconstitutional law is void, the general principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no protection, and justifies no acts performed under it…
    A void act cannot be legally consistent with a valid one. An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the lend, it is superseded thereby.
    No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it.” – 16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177 late 2d, Sec 256
    Never Again!
    Recognizing the many sad lessons of civilian disarmament and subsequent genocides in the 20th Century, we will make bold and forthright statement: Never Again! We will not submit to the unlawful decrees of tyrants. We will not meekly go their jails and internment camps. We will fight for our liberty, to our dying breath.
    Come Armed, Come Masked
    I recommend that all adults who publicly assemble at these burn barrel events do so armed, as is our right. And those who come armed should also wear masks, to protect themselves from malicious prosecution. I plan to wear a Guy Fawkes mask, but you can wear a bandana, face muffler, or the face mask of your choice. Joining you, also wearing masks, will be many mayors, sheriffs and their deputies, chiefs of police and their officers, town council members, clergy, and people of all walks of life. We vastly outnumber the tyrants. The tyrants deserve nothing but our scorn and derision. Their fate is already sealed.
    Plausible Denial
    After this fateful day has come and gone, FFL holders and public officials will be able to recount: “I had no choice. My records were taken by men with guns who were wearing masks!” (So they’ll have no excuse if they don’t cooperate with this nationwide display of civil disobedience.)
    God Bless The Republic. Down with Tyrants. We Will Prevail!
    – James Wesley, Rawles – January 28, 2013
    Note: Permission to reprint or re-post this piece in full by any method (printed or electronically) is granted by the author (James Wesley, Rawles), as a long as it is not altered in any way and it is reproduced in full.

22. Robert,
    It appears that the missile launcher is a spent FIM-92 (can’t tell which version, but a later one) surface-to-air missile launcher. Also known as a Stinger.

23. “Big lines at gun buyback, which nets a missile launcher.”

    Just me being a pedant but, don’t all firearms launch missiles? Perhaps grenade launcher or rocket launcher might be more accurate.

    • Even a Wrist-Rocket is a missile launcher.

      Which you used to able to buy at any toy store…

24. DANG! I WANT that missile launcher! For educational purposes only, of course.

25. This concerns the Stinger missile.

    18 USC § 2332g – Missile systems designed to destroy aircraft:

    (a) Unlawful Conduct.—

    (1) In general.— Except as provided in paragraph (3), it shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly produce, construct, otherwise acquire, transfer directly or indirectly, receive, possess, import, export, or use, or possess and threaten to use—
    (A) an explosive or incendiary rocket or missile that is guided by any system designed to enable the rocket or missile to—
    (i) seek or proceed toward energy radiated or reflected from an aircraft or toward an image locating an aircraft; or
    (ii) otherwise direct or guide the rocket or missile to an aircraft;
    (B) any device designed or intended to launch or guide a rocket or missile described in subparagraph (A); or
    (C) any part or combination of parts designed or redesigned for use in assembling or fabricating a rocket, missile, or device described in subparagraph (A) or (B).

    The empty tube and the grip stock both fall into (B).

Comments are closed.