I find myself very down since the Dallas massacre, and increasingly outraged (I know, I should not be anymore) over the lack of leadership coming from the White House and other top levels of the government. Our leaders foster division instead of unity. Unlike in the X Files, "the truth is not out there," the truth sits right in front of our noses. I go on progressive websites, and comment boards, and read nonsense about the threat posed by "right wing extremists." Since when did Black Lives Matter become a right-wing extremist group? Words have no meaning anymore in prog land . . .
The development I long ago feared is happening. We see a Molotov-Von Ribbentrop pact between leftist terrorists and Muslim terrorists, aiming to take down their common enemy, Western (read white) civilization. In addition, I remember something I wrote years ago while I was in Sri Lanka and later Indonesia. I wondered then why terror groups seemed so enamored of what I labeled the "CNN effect," a giant dramatic explosion or big attack. I know from personal experience, those kind of events are relatively easy for security forces to discover and head off. The real terror, in my view, comes from "little" terror. I had noticed the impact the Washington DC sniper had on American society, and thought that were I a terrorist that's the way to go; especially with the advent of 24 hour cable news and social media, coordination is not hard. Simultaneous or sequential sniper attacks or even guys on motorcycles shooting at motorists and pedestrians in multiple cities across America, Canada, Australia, and Europe would have a devastating effect on the ability of ordinary citizens to lead ordinary lives. I think we have started seeing this horror come to fruition.
All this was on my mind as my number two son and I drove to Temecula to pick up my S&W 686 from the nice folks at Faith Armory. According to the paperwork from the once great State of California, I could not claim my gun before 11:20:02 am on July 9. We arrived a bit early in my dusty but trusty 2005 Chevy Trailblazer (the car that will not die!) and had a look around. My son has applied for concealed carry, and one of the requirements for getting it is, well, you must have a gun to carry concealed--within the logic of the whole insane CC process in California, that's probably the least irrational requirement. He settled on a just-arrived, and very nice S&W MP9c. It came with two California compliant magazines: a 7+1 and an 8+1. I had not seen this model before; I own a full size MP40 which is terrific, but a bit large for CC. He presented his ID, took and passed the test (28/30), went through the safety demo, plunked down his cash, and . . . gets to wait ten days. I wanted one, too! Alas! The kindly salesman informed me that I could only purchase one handgun/month. Since I had bought my 686 on June 29, I would have to wait until July 29, before I could buy another, and then, of course, wait ten more days. I will be back! I also have my eye on an 870 Express Tactical, much like the ones I had in Pakistan, Guatemala, and Bolivia.
The digital clock finally ticked over to 11:20:02; the hold on my gun purchase was released. The salesman went into the back, and soon returned with the iconic S&W plastic box with my goody inside. He had me examine it, did some more paperwork, and finally it was mine!
California has just passed a loopy law meant to restrict ammo purchase by requiring a background check on every such purchase. I asked how this would work once the law came into effect. The salesman said nobody has any idea; the store personnel await guidance from Sacramento's progressive overlords who increasingly run our lives. He suggested I buy ammo now, lots of it. I already had ordered a bunch of the fun stuff from Cheaper than Dirt (arrived in two days!) and am ordering more. Lots more.
We are heading for some very bad times.
D'Mad,
ReplyDeleteEver notice how the Proggy Politicos get their knickers in a knot over long guns instead of the more commonly used handguns? Maybe it has something to do with worrying that their behavior might incite people to do something, much as the English lords did with King James in the Glorious Revolution.
Green Bear
Long guns look scary, that's all.
DeleteThe left mentality with firearms is to address the tool, not the causation. If a person was spontaneously digging holes in the street the left would take away his shovels. Problem solved, and we feel good. Rather than asking why does this man dig holes in the street and addressing the reason why. That is more difficult and doesn't provide that warm fussy feel good instant gratification that drives their motivations. On the firearms subject, I don't like trigger safeties. So the S&W M&P series, is not on my list. A rather nasty way Kalistan has reduced your choices is that they make every manufacture submit each firearm they want to sell in your screwed up state for evaluation by the state, and if they deem it proper than it can be sold there. I am sure this service is not performed without significant cost to the manufacturer. So a good portion of available firearms are not available in your state. Not because they have large magazines, simply because the manufacturer isn't going to pay the extortion to sell in that market.
ReplyDeleteI understand that Bushmaster will no longer produce AR 15s legal in California. They can sell all they make elsewhere.
DeleteThis is because Kalistan just forbade the use of removable magazines on semi-auto rifles. Previously manufacturers had worked around the prior removable magazine restrictions by changing the magazine release to a inset button that required a "tool" to remove the magazine, the best tool was the tip of a 5.56mm round. Now the only legal AR-15 would have to have a maximum 10 round non removable magazine, which requires pushing the take down pin out and reloading from a open receiver. Ridiculous! No one will sell AR's in Kalistan now.
DeleteIt is interesting that you see the connections between BLM and Islamic terrorism. My wife and I were talking about this very thing this morning over coffee. We need adult leadership very soon or our world is going to devolve quickly into deadly violent chaos.
ReplyDeleteWhile Obama remains stuck-on-stupid (his default mode) and keeps appointing incompetents in the DoJ then the hate-whitey agenda will continue.
DeleteViolent chaos is what he seems to want to provoke.
Dip,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the link to Cheaper than Dirt, but I live in LaLa Land and they cannot ship ammo to my zip code
Yes, these are dangerous times and the law-abiding citizens are being stripped of their rights. Criminals have rights, but their victims do not.
The leftist Kulturkampf is most highly developed in California. It's all about kicking your red-state enemies in the nut sack as hard and as often as you can. Queer sex ed and gender theory in public schools? (You thought the Millenials were bad, wait for Generation Twink). Crack down on water rights (for farmers, anyway; the flatlanders need to keep their swimming pools full)? Drivers' licenses and voter registration forms for three million illegal aliens (the single largest act of voter fraud in American history)? Ammo and firearms restrictions that openly defy both the Bill of Rights and the Commerce Clause? It's all of a piece, folks. And every punch they land, I buy more heirloom seeds, more Mason jars, and more ammo.
ReplyDeletePS: Gunbot is your friend.
It is indeed "Idiocracy" come true.
Delete- reader #1482
The leftist Kulturkampf is most highly developed in California. It's all about kicking your red-state enemies in the nut sack as hard and as often as you can. Queer sex ed and gender theory in public schools? (You thought the Millenials were bad, wait for Generation Twink). Crack down on water rights (for farmers, anyway; the flatlanders need to keep their swimming pools full)? Drivers' licenses and voter registration forms for three million illegal aliens (the single largest act of voter fraud in American history)? Ammo and firearms restrictions that openly defy both the Bill of Rights and the Commerce Clause? It's all of a piece, folks. And every punch they land, I buy more heirloom seeds, more Mason jars, and more ammo.
ReplyDeletePS: Gunbot is your friend.
Dangerous times indeed. However, I suspect that the devolution of society into chaos posited by a previous poster may well be their end game. After all, if there is chaos, who will the people look to but a strong central government.
ReplyDeleteThe full moon shines every night, year round over Sacramento ...
ReplyDeleteRegarding "little" terror, I saw an article somewhere discussing it. (Sadly, don't remember where.) The article said there 3 objectives in an organized terror attack: effect on target, effect on potential recruits, and effect on donors/support. Apparently the "little" terror attacks aren't good at getting recruits or external support, while the flashy attacks excel at those. So the terrorist organizations are drawn to the flashy attacks which increase their "status".
ReplyDeleteI can't stand it! What is gunbot?
ReplyDeleteI gather that the land of fruits, flakes, and nuts is also trying to get religious institutions to honor the LGBT agenda. It seems they hate the First Amendment as much as they hate the 2d.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry. They'll let Muslim organizations off the hook.
DeleteYeah, I absolutely can't see how churches are going to continue in the US when they're stuck between the 'rock' (scotus gay-marriage ruling) and the 'hard place' (New Mexico wedding photographer ruling).
DeleteBetween these two, churches will lose their tax exempt status.
Then they will be sued into the underground for refusing to perform gay weddings.
First amendment rights have been trumped by rights invented whole cloth by a liberal supreme court.
From my reading of the opinions, the rationale is so clear, I'm not even sure the subsequent cases will make their way up to scotus.
I'm predicting loss of tax exempt status by 2024 (tax exempt status is a 'benefit' anyways) and business-shutdown of all churches believing the bible to be the inerrant word of god by 2035 (due to the infinite civil liability of harming every person who would want to be gay-married by a/the church).
This will likely be a bad thing for America, but a good thing for the christian church, as it will turn Christians from the slobs grown spiritually fat on free religious exercise that we are here, into evangelists like seen in the underground churches in other repressive regimes around the world. Not sure what effect it will have on other religions.
I'm not advocating the coming suppression of Christianity, but the church will thrive in comparison to our anemic 'denominations' today.
- reader #1482
Churches could get out of the "legal" marriage business and only perform the religious sacrament of marriage for whom they choose. Much like performing the sacrament of baptism. If a couple wanted to be legally married, they would have to go to a government entity to do so.
DeleteHangtown Bob
Yes, Kepha. Conservatives have always wished that the Left would treat Second Amendment rights with the same seriousness they treat First Amendment rights. Now we have our wish.
DeleteFrankly, this whole establishment of the sexual revolution stinks of creeping tyranny by society's worst elements. Sort of like the parable of the trees seeking a king from the book of Judges.
DeleteA further issue is that when the Left destroys the churches tax exemption, they will find that they can confiscate nothing more than the dwindling bequests on which the dying Mainline denominations live; while the Evangelical churches they hate will have only shoestring budgets for them to attack. Then there will be real fury from the Left about how religious people don't play fair, and all the rest.
However, there's another alternative. We can engage in civil disobedience, emphasis on civil. The problem with this is that Christians understand that an important aspect of living in political society is that governments are there that we might lead quiet and peaceable lives I Tim. 2.2. However, we now have a governing class (overripe radicals from the Silly 'Sixties and Sillier 'Seventies) for whom crisis and stirring up division is the way to gain and keep power. When governments cease to be a terror to bad behavior, but instead begin terrorizing good behavior, then the social contract is broken.
Further, it would be a very good thing if we had some people with 外卵 in Congress who would impeach some of these judges who allow the whole cloth "rights" discovered in the supposed penumbrae of the Constitution to trump those found in its clearly printed black-and-white text.
Another great objection I have to the O and his [mal]administration is his hatred of private charities. While I am dubious of some of the large ones like United Way, in which administrative costs seem to be primary, a lot has been and still is done by religious charities. Care of orphans, rather than leaving them to starve or be preyed upon, is a legacy of Christendom. It was a very black day when the demands of the LGBT movement drove the Roman Catholic Church out of arranging adoptions in DC, It's too bad that the RC's didn't respond with a large media campaign--but, then again, they may have been out of money for such due to the costs of litigation over the queer priests.
DeleteOf course, the great wave in lich-rich-ah these days is about evil treatment in religious orphanages or homes for wayward girls. I guess the liberal publishing executives would rather have the refuse collectors sweep up the expossed infants and for the wayward girls to be available as playthings for the powerful, to be left to drown themselves when the bloom starts to fade or when they're too riddled with HIV/AIDS, whichever comes first.
While we're at it, when I was in Guangzhou back in 1992-94, I noticed that in the state-run orphanages of a regime infamous for its rye-chee-uss indignation over the mortality rates in pre-Communist China's orphanages and ever so willing to play on the superstition that the dead babies were turned into medicines for mission hospitals, the management (in distinction to the actual workers, who were often Christian, since no-one else would do such work) actually saw the high mortality of the unwanted girls of the 1990's as a good thing.
BTW, I am not a Roman Catholic. But I do respect what some other group's charitable work has performed and still performs.
Also, as a former SE Asia hand, I suspect that the O administration bullied African countries over sodomy laws because southern Asia has been wising up to Western sex tourism, and that the Dems want new playgrounds for such donors as Terry Bean.
Congrats on your acquisition as well as your sons purchase. That S&W M&P 9c was what I looked at when I wanted to get a slightly smaller carry semi than the P95 I had but the height of the S&W was too short for my hand. Ever hear of SGammo? They ship fast & have good prices but shipping times have slowed the last couple of weeks because of the news. It's interesting reading info from a former State Dept person...
ReplyDeleteThanks for the SGammo tip.
DeleteI will second the upvote for SGAmmo. I encountered the young man that runs the business frequently at area gun shows and found him and his family to be great people. He has since stopped gun show sales to focus entirely on the online business. I've bought a ton from him and always been happy.
Deletegunbot.net. Finds ammunition.
ReplyDeleteI recently purchased a used Berreta model 92 online from Gander Mountain. Picked it up at their local store. Very convenient. I am glad that you found CTD useful.
ReplyDeleteLiving in NV, I see a lot of Californians moving out of CA and into NV to escape the madness there. We had another ex-Californian turn up at our Monday lunch two weeks ago, and he expressly mentioned California's gun laws as what caused him to move after 40 years in the east bay. He appears to be a good guy, but with Californians you never really know. The county I live in votes Republican regularly, but our brand of Republicanism is becoming more liberal all the time. I am happy that productive people are leaving CA, but I wish they would leave all their crypto liberalism behind.
ReplyDeleteBackground checks for ammo? Buy a Lee Challenger Press, a brick of primers, canister of powder and a bag of JHP bullets. You'll recoup the set up cost very quickly and have
ReplyDeletesufficient quality ammunition for practice. Practice is MOST important.
Yes, there's a bright future for reloaders . . .
DeleteAnd a bullet mould - with LOTS of powder and LOTS of primers, you can forgo the expensive jacketed bullets and if everything is banned (including reloading equipment and components) you can scrounge lead or wheel balance weights and run the gun without access to a dealer.
DeleteCast lead bullets are just as effective as jacketed (the original .357 magnum was loaded with lead bullets). This on line book will keep you right ...
http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Contents.htm
Phil B
I also conjectured an association between Islamists and the left, but I thought it would be environmental leftists, not anarchist leftists. Sharia should be the last place to live for those who obey no law, but environmentalists would do just fine. They basically both want to go back to the 7th century.
ReplyDeleteahhh *very* nice parallelism! indeed.. those two movements have goals that would present with the same symptoms!
Delete- reader #1482
When the snipers and motorcycles start killg us on the crappy full freeways,then the days of strange fruit hangg from the trees will return.Tolerating buildgs blog up is one thing,murder that close to actual homes will start the backlash we so need.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you've explained this before and I missed it, Sr. DiploMad, but why do you continue to live in California?
ReplyDeleteSure, the weather's nice (although the state continues to suffer from those pesky earthquakes and water shortages), but you've also got hellacious taxes, insanity in Sacramento, the crazy bureaucratic intrusions of the type that you explained here, and a generally freedom-hostile atmosphere.
I understand that it's useful to have people there to continue fighting the good fight, but still. I love visiting the state, but I could never live there.
You're a smart guy, so you must have good reasons. I just have no idea what they might be. Would you enlighten us?
Family. Taking care of my father. Want to get out ASAP.
DeleteCome on Down! La Florida and the Fountain of Youth are hospitable to retiring Conquistadors, and odd Vikings too! We even receive "The Donald" peaceably hereabouts in the Off Season! Maybe you could write his Policy Papers under the Nom deplume Z Diplomax?! Regards to your PaPa!
ReplyDeleteOn Watch~~~
"Let's Roll"
I have two condos in Doral, next to the Trump property. I am dying to go there.
DeleteThe Lefties from CA are already doing their work in OR and WA. I swear, it's like a virus. I really need to get a concealed carry while I still can.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy these missives. Remember: "The pen is almost mightier than the Kimber."
ReplyDeleteBut why would you take that gas-guzzler when you could take something with a 4 barrel Holley? Was #2 son being punished?
He wanted a/c
DeleteHi Diplo, tried to email you, but none was evident. For ammo, use gunbot.net to find the best prices on bulk orders. CTD is sometimes ok, but often not the best source.h
ReplyDelete