http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=canWdPwubA4

Sam Stone— a country song about a drug-addicted Vietnam vet who returns to a life without hope or meaning—is the most brutal piece of music I’ve ever heard. I was thinking about the song while reading the Daily Mail. “The ex-girlfriend of fugitive former cop Christopher Dorner came forward on Thursday to say the man she used to date had trouble acclimating to his life after his military career.” As we hurtle towards gunageddon—armed confrontation between Americans exercising their Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms and law enforcement officers (LEOs) seeking to deprive them of that right—I wonder how many veterans will get caught-up in the melee. Meanwhile, here’s some news about what has . . .

Just what we don’t need: a former ATF director as the U.S. Senator from Massachusetts. Michael Sullivan, Sean Bielat eye Senate bostonherald.com

MAIG Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s pension fund proxy (not Hizzoner himself, apparently) reckons the firearms industry is a safe bet. NYC mayor dissented from vote to sell gun stocks sfgate.com

Steven Colbert disses Steven Seagal [via washingtonpost.com]

Filling our schools with gun-toting guys who have nowhere to be during work hours might give some parents pause but rest assured, mom and dad, these volunteer posses are getting top-notch training…  The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is an even worse actor. We know Hollywood violence is the real problem. Therefore it is also the solution. It’s just like fighting fire with fire. If your house is on fire, call an arsonist. He’ll know what to do.

TTAG’s flagged this false flag gun guy before. And now Adam Winkler declares that The Second Amendment Is All for Gun Control dailybeast.com

"Signs on the Lexington Central Library doors prohibiting concealed deadly weapons were being taken down. Photo by Charles Bertram | Staff" (courtesy kentucky.com)

Or not. Lexington library, health department remove signs banning firearms kentucky.com

Oh and she was arrested, too. UIC: Staffer on leave after bringing handgun to campus chicagotribune.com

Sticks and stones  . . . “He was very skilled and crafty as far as making makeshift edged weapons inside the prison. That was in the forethoughts of the officers. He was able to almost kill an officer with some eyeglasses.” Texas police fatally shoot fugitive Fla. prisoner seattlepi.com

Reeva Steenkamp (courtesy enstarz.com)

Whether she died via negligent discharge or murder, Reeva Steenkamp RIP.

One bad apple? “On Tuesday, law enforcement officials arrested Everett Basham, 45, a Silicon Valley engineer who once worked with Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak.” Yee calls death threat over gun measures explicit and chilling latimes.com

Funny how no one seems to mention that Dorner was pro-gun control . . .

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47 COMMENTS

  1. Remember when we used to get to read about fun new shooting products and only every third or so article was political? God, I miss that.

    • We must discus politics, that our sons may have the liberty to discuss fun new shooting products…

      John Adams “I must study politics and war, that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, natural history and naval architecture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, tapestry, and porcelain.”

    • I miss the climate of not having to worry about which gun grabber is coming after whatever evil gun is the flavor of the week. I miss easy-to-access ammo and fair prices for magazines and rifles.

      However I APPLAUD this blog for keeping our rights in the forefront of gun news. There are plenty of other blogs that bury their heads in the sand. TTAG doesn’t – and that’s why it’s #1.

      • I hope that some day, these posts will be a distant memory because gun restrictions will be as unthinkable as the return of slavery. Until that day, these posts are what keep me glued to TTAG as almost my sole destination on the internet.

        With availability what it is right now, posts about guns and gear is about as relevant to me as posts about what kind of wax I should be using to keep my unicorn’s horn looking shiny.

        • Any struggle becomes tiresome. I know I am tired of the crap and it’s only been two months, but we must keep doing what we can to ensure our elected officials uphold the 2A. It would be nice if they would look at all of our rights as innate in the future and not coming from the state like so many seem to do these days.

        • +1000

          Anyone who enjoys being a free citizen should take the threats to their rights seriously. Free men carry guns, slaves don’t.

        • This fight is more tiresome for our enemies. They aren’t single issue like we are. This is just one front in a war for them. Sure, right now, with Sandy Hook still fresh in people’s minds, this is one of their main fronts. (they think they see a way to win some quick victories, and make the opposition look like nuts) But, a new weak spot will open up, and people will drift there, leaving only the hard core anti gun people we’ve been dealing with for years.

  3. Once again a non veteran passes judgement on something he has no experience of. I will only speak for myself. I do not look forward to bringing that guy, my other military self back out to play. If I spend the rest of my life doing no harm to others I will be a happy man. But, if it’s a choice between bringing him out again or selling my children and grandkids and country out. then he gets the nod.

    Hopefully the courts will knock most of this crap down before it gets to the point were it’s units, both for and against, taking the field on mainstreet America.

    At that point you will be glad to have those vets with you.

  5. I love the sign,”Concealed deadly Weapons are Prohibited…”
    So as long as I have non-lethal stuff, I’m OK, right?
    What if I promise to only incapacitate?

    • Im sure there are plenty of books in that library that can be used as weapons, whether as blunt objects or just putting bad thoughts in peoples minds.

    • Just carry in the library, nobody will be the wiser, and you can take out the creep who decides to hit a gun free zone (though you will have to take a few slings and arrows from the libtards not seeing the forest through the trees who may go after you).

      • Signs have no force of law in KY, if put up by a private business or individual. They may ask you to leave, which makes it trespassing if you don’t comply.

  6. I started to read the comments on latimes.com and after 5 minutes I had to close the page. I hope the “big” one comes and does humanity a favor and drops California into the ocean.

  7. If Yee is getting realistic death threats, maybe he ought to get a CCW?….
    On another note, are we really to believe that some Silicon Valley engineer doesn’t know how to hide his e-mail address? Or that they found “precurser chemicals” for an ED but no ED and more importantly, NO GUN? I betcha precurser chemicals include gas for the lawnmower and turpentine….(Something’s happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear….)

    • From what I understand, the suspect is more than a little unstable, and it’s 50/50 whether he actually managed to put together a flammable mixture, much less an explosive one. He certainly appears to have given it a good try.

      My info is indirect (two degrees removed) but seems consistent with what I’ve read in the news stories.

      • Hey, AlphaGeek! Glad to see you!

        I read that story about the guy who was arrested for threatening Yee. He’ a software exec from California, and I had an “uh oh” moment. I didn’t really think it was you, but then I didn’t see comments from you for a while…

  8. Colbert is right–Steven Seagal is a terrible actor. But he is also a Louisiana reserve officer and one of the Hollywood few who are not rabidly anti-gun.

      • He’s also an excellent shot. I watched him compete against JPSO’s SWAT team in a pistol competition and he made Jefferson Parish’s best look like half-blind 3rd graders.

  9. Having seen what Civil War looks like (well, mostly the aftermath of one – Bosnia ’95 IFOR) believe me, we aren’t interested in having one.

    • Agreed. Unfortunately, being one who studies the raw retails of history, who believes that history tends to repeat, I am hard pressed to believe it will not get much worse before it gets better. I wish those in DC would pick up a real history book so they can understand that they are playing with fire above a powder keg. 1 billion rounds sold every week and more then 5 million guns sold in 3 months…probably doesn’t take a history buff to tell people something is coming.

  10. Pardon the length, but since you asked:

    It is, RF, a rather remarkable thing to wonder “how many veterans will get caught up in the melee. And how many will, sorry to say, enjoy it.” The question holds for me an echo of Janet Napolitano’s famous product, the special-alert letter warning of returning disenchanted “ultra-right-wing” vets. So far the explosive vets seem to have been left-wing, but that’s another story.

    There is an exploitation narrative woven into US politics -it first arose in the late sixties- which as a defensive maneuver demeans vets (not really a cohesive simple category) as a class, enabling those who do not serve to claim they themselves are more virtuous than vets, because they spent the time pursuing their own profit unscarred by whatever it is that combat does to a person. Those who propagate this narrative have, generally, no idea what combat does, nor do they reflect that wars, battles, contexts of combat, vary a great deal, yielding varied sequelae.

    It is worth noting that most vets are not combat vets. Clint Eastwood is a vet, though he taught swimming at a base pool in the US. “Gunny” Lee Ermey sold you a feeling of realism in Full Metal Jacket, though he, too, has no combat experience. Many of your readers admire the conservative disciplined military ethos of the late gun guru Col. Jeff Cooper, though he, too, had no front-line combat experience of record. You also do not refer, generally, to those with prior service as officers in US forces. Christopher Dorner, a former lieutenant in the US Navy, is an exception, and several news outlets actually referred to him as a “former sailor,” which is inapt for an ex-officer, and was, perhaps unconsciously, belittlement. “He must have been in the ranks,” they asssumed. They couldn’t decipher the insignia on his uniform collar. His bizarre threats of “asymetric warfare” said to me he was never a front line soldier. He led a squad in Iraq for a time, on an offshore pipeline rig, and did some searches of dubious boats.

    No, vets is short-hand for low-ranking enlisted vets in combat specialties. Vietnam vets who saw the villages and jungles up close for extended periods saw civil war. I cannot think of a group less inclined to wish a reprise of that brutality. This is probably true of those who served in Granada, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, as well. Forget the glory stories of the embedded journalists. That was just to sell advertising, much as you sell clicks. Those veterans have no wish for violence. Indeed most of them are now home working for police departments, government agencies, car dealerships, the usual run of American work life. One of my best friends, a former officer with the 101st in RVN, recently retired as the chief of the foreign operations division of America’s third-largest bank. Many “vets” do quite well. They don’t scream “I’m a vet.” Much less do most resemble John Prine’s Sam Stone. Indeed, every addicted street bum in the US claimed to be “a ‘Nam vet, man” even when they weren’t, unless they claimed more specifically to be an ex-SEAL, which they also usually weren’t. That still happens.

    I do think that combat veterans have a different attitude towards guns and 2Am. rights than others do. They also often have a different view, privately, of politicians. I myself got sent seven or eight times a day (sorties) over fixed NVA triple-A and 51 cal positions for a purpose which, seven weeks later, adjudged “a misadventure,” or as Chief SOG put it, “the most screwed up disaster of the war,” Laos. Haig and Kissinger pushed that incursion until they didn’t, having suddenly developed a new-found fondness for the strategic charms of the Peoples Republic of China.

    The meme of “there will be blood” over Amendment II issues is, I think, absurd, and your fillip to clicks (“and sorry to say, enjoy it”) is exploitation. Conscientious objection, yes. Violence, no. The only place you and I are sure there will be blood is in Chicago, New Orleans, and LA…tomorrow and every day thereafter, probably for years. Those shooters are apparently already enjoying it, and with illegal guns, and getting a free pass. As Julian Gayles could tell you, in Chicago they don’t even give the illegal shooters jail time these days, ’cause their jails are full. Enjoy that.

  11. Don’t look for that to happen until the people of the several States come to finally acknowledge what is becoming so painfully and glaringly obvious; that this country is equally, fatally and irrevocably divided in its outlook on the Constitution, and the role government should play in their lives. We must, before it comes to bloodshed, all come to the realization that there will be no peace so long as we continue in the insane folly of trying to govern two diametrically opposed peoples under one government. The only sane and sensible action to take when two parties have such monumental and irreconcilable differences, is to separate. We must follow the example of our forefathers who said; “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”…… Who here cannot, instantly, recite a long train of abuses and usurpations by this tyrannical government that would make those listed in the Declaration committed by King George PALE in comparison???? It is time to S E P A R A T E! ! !

    • “Who here cannot, instantly, recite a long train of abuses and usurpations by this tyrannical government that would make those listed in the Declaration committed by King George PALE in comparison????”

      You may want to go back and actually read the list, and keep in mind that all those things you read were done unilaterally by a sovereign king. We’re not there yet. The vast majority* of “abuses and usurpations” of which you speak were promulgated by Congress, our elected representatives. Were those policies that were introduced and supported by him? Sure. But were they enacted and enforced by him? No.

      * Please, for the love of God, read the bolded word above and don’t come back with “but what about…” as if having one or two contra-examples negates my point.

  12. Dorner was a reserve officer attached to an anti-submarine unit. His only deployment was to Bahrain with a port and coastal security unit. Are we actually going with the PTSD vet who has trouble adjusting angle. Really? REALLY?

    REALLY?!?!

    • So Dorner was a Reservist that guarded oil platforms from a small vessel. Hmm, sounds a lot like what I did. Unless you get ptsd from doing absolutely nothing but making up ways to pass the time, none of his crazy can be blamed on his service.

      What a crock.

  13. “sorry to say, enjoy it?”

    R.F. What are you even saying? I like the blog, but I don’t come here for stupidity from the authors. I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here, but if I’m reading this either way (vets are helping the police come for your guns, and will enjoy it, or vets will get into a shootout with the police, and enjoy it), you couldn’t have made a dumber argument. As a member of a hated, feared segment of the population (gun owner/advocate), and someone who is often on the wrong side of pop-culture perceptions, I would have thought that you of all people would be able to have a little sympathy for those in a similar predicament… Please edit for clarity to explain what you meant, if either of those two points are not what you intended to convey. If you don’t clarify, I’m going to just categorize you as a blithering ignoramus, and find a better gun blog.

  14. I know vets who miss the action. REALLY miss the action. They can’t get the same adrenal buzz they got from combat in civilian life. They are highly moral people who are not in any danger of going off the deep end. But they would relish the opportunity to go back into battle. Some of them are already chasing that buzz by working as LEOs (two of them are SWAT commanders).

    Again, I don’t mean to feed the meme of hair trigger vets ready to pull a Dorner. I’d trust any of these guys with my life. I just hope to God I never have to.

    Anyway, text amended.

  17. “The author of that email specifically stated that if I did not cease efforts to deal with gun violence…”

    Um… I HIGHLY doubt that the e-mailer said he was against Yee’s “efforts to deal with gun violence.” Talk about sticking to your own spin on the facts!!! Wouldn’t want to possibly hurt your cause by actually using the language of those who oppose your ideology, eh?

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