Opposed: WA Legislature’s HB1240 To Ban Certain Firearms

I am Opposed: WA Legislature’s HB1240 To Ban Certain Firearms

The WA Legislature has introduced bills in the House and Senate to ban certain firearms. All citizens of the United States should be opposed to this completely un-constitutional attempt to violate our individual rights and restrict our liberty.

Several members of the WA State Legislature, at the request of the Attorney General and Governor, have introduced bills in the House and Senate to ban certain firearms. Those bills are HB 1130 and SB 5265.

One Key Bit of Text of HB 1240

Assault weapons are civilian versions of weapons created for the military and are designed to kill humans quickly and efficiently. For this reason the legislature finds that assault weapons are “like” “M-16 rifles” and thus are “weapons most useful in military service.”

Well, yes, that is somewhat true. Although “assault weapons” is a made up category that mostly has to do with them being “Scary Black Rifles”. In any case, below I will demonstrate that this is actually the exact weapons the Second Amendment is meant to protect.

And here you go …. a Scary Black Rifle aka an “assault weapon”. She’s purty, too.

Before that, let’s start with the reality that AG and Governor both swore oaths to uphold and defend the US and WA State Constitutions, which protect the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. And most legislators also voluntarily took that oath. As I will demonstrate in this post, the US Constitution very specifically protects the right of the citizens of the United States to purchase, own, and bear warlike weapons for lawful purposes, including self-defense.

It’s a long post, so bear with me, but read it all the way through.

Continue reading

Posted in 2A - Second Amendment, Government, Gun Grabbers, Guns, Politics | Tagged , | 3 Comments

The Constitution Applies Equally To Everyone

A powerful message to the States and the People of the United States from the Supreme Court. The Constitution applies equally to everyone. It says “We The People” in the preamble for a reason.

We The People is in the preamble of the Constitution for a reason.

We The People are the very first words of the Constitution of the United States for a reason. It applies equally, to all of us.

Chief Justice Roberts preface to the annual year end report on the Federal Judiciary is powerful. One message he calls out clearly, that the Federal courts have to be protected from those would act criminally and violently against them.

But, more important, I think is the very critical reminder that you may not like what a court decides. You may not agree with it. You may think they are idiots. But what they decide is still the law. And must be followed until such time as you are able to change it.

In the case of the Supreme Court making decisions related to the law and the US Constitution, that means if you don’t like what the Supreme Court decided, you are going to have to change the Constitution.

Whether it is Brown v. Board of Education or NYSRPA v. Bruen. These landmark decisions are the cases where the Supreme Court said that the Constitution isn’t optional and applies equally to all. In one regarding education, public facilities, and the color of people’s skin. In the latter case regarding firearms, ownership, bearing arms and whether the State likes the people or not.

The key thread here is that the Court told us, to reiterate, the Constitution isn’t optional AND it applies equally to everyone and everyplace. States don’t get to pick and choose which parts they care about and which they don’t.

The bottom line: The Constitution applies equally to everyone.

Posted in Security | 1 Comment

People Say Insane Things On Social Media

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t believe them. After all, for many years, many people have threatened violence against a wide variety of folks on Twitter, Facebook, etc. And then some of them did it, whether it be something like the mass shooting in Uvalde (the shooter flat out said he was going to do it) or something like the violence and riots in many large cities perpetrated by BLM and AntiFa. Who have also been threatening violence for many, many years.

And then there’s this woman …..

First, she needs mental health help. Second, why is she allowed to remain on Twitter? Third, try it is the right response.

Why? Simple …. First, it’s not possible and a horrible misunderstanding of the foundational roles of men and women in human society. Second, what does she think comes next if she succeeds? The end of the human race, of course. Which makes her a genocidal maniac. Or stupid. Or both.

So, go ahead Emily McCombs. Try it. See what happens.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk should be looking at this sort of insanity every day.

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The Holocaust and Whoopi Goldberg

The Holocaust Wasn’t Racist?

There’s been a fair amount written about the incredible lack of knowledge displayed by Whoopi Goldberg about The Holocaust. It’s been going on for about a year now, starting in late January, 2022. I’m not criticizing Whoopi Goldberg. I honestly think that she is caught up in crazy avoidance of education about The Holocaust that we see today in the US and the incredible emphasis on only one sort of racism and racist behavior at the same time. To the point where basically is saying that The Holocaust was a white on white thing, not a racist thing.

Naturally this hit me right in the FUD feels and I felt I had to respond. This definitely called for a whiskey, a cigar, and my trusty keyboard!

cigar and whiskey

What’s the issue? A recap.

A brief recap, if you aren’t sure what this is all about. Whoopi Goldberg said, during a live segment of The View, that ““If you’re going to do this [Removing the graphic novel “Maus” from classrooms in a specific school district”], then let’s be truthful about it because the Holocaust isn’t about race.” She then apologized for this, but not very well. And then last week, Goldberg defended what she said in January. Now that we are caught up, on to the reality of the Nazi’s, the Holocaust, racism, visually marking folks, and more that occurred in the Third Reich (as the Nazi’s referred to Germany from 1933 to 1945).

Side Note: I’m going to include extensive links to the history I talk about below. It appears to me that WW2, Nazism, The Holocaust are not taught well in our government education system anymore. The links are to help my readers that don’t have a strong background in the subject.

Continue reading

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Site Migration and Changes

I made a bunch of site migration and changes over the last few days. Including moving my blogs from GoDaddy to BlueHost. It actually went really smoothly, surprisingly. I only had to call support one time! Here’s what I’ve done

  1. Consolidated all blogging that is cultural, political, social to Security, Cigars & FUD – both https://www.securitycigarsfud.com/ and https://www.securitycigarsfud.net/ work for this blog.
  2. Created a new blog for things distinctly related to information security, technology, career, etc: https://www.securityandcigars.com/. New posts coming there in short order.
  3. Revitalized a blog I started, but never did anything with, that will focus on food, smoking meat, wine, whiskey, and the like: https://www.smokewinewhiskey.com/
  4. And moved all of this from GoDaddy to BlueHost. BlueHost is much less expensive, much easier to work with, and appears to be less likely to play cancel culture on me.

If you’re curious what prompted all of this, check out Ch-Ch-Changes and Response to Facebook Ban.

And meanwhile, I still have a full time, quite demanding, job. I figure I can get out a good post every day. Each of the blogs has a subscribe button on it. I’d love it if you subscribed and joined the party!

Yes, I’m going to be active here. The content that has been on Facebook will mostly move over here.

As far as BlueHost goes, their tech support folks were incredibly helpful in doing all of this. In fact, they advised me on the best way to set things up for the lowest cost. Where GoDaddy was generally always trying to sell me more in the one call I had to make to them.

Nothing like a major set of site migrations and changes in the 5 minutes I have between meetings!

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Fear & Loathing in DC

As seems to be the norm now, there is nothing but fear and loathing displayed by the Administration and Congressional Majority when someone undertakes to expose the facts that they conceal on a daily basis.

In this case, two Congressmen, Seth Moulton (D, MA) and Jim Meijer (R, MI) took a trip to Afghanistan to see for themselves what is happening there. Both are military veterans and sit on the House Armed Services Committee. They spent their own money to fly to the United Arab Emirates and then flew on a military transport in and out of Kabul. According to their public statements, they did not occupy a seat in or out of Kabul that could be used for much needed military personnel going in or civilians coming out.

Here’s their statement in its entirety:

As veterans we care deeply about the situation on the ground at Hamid Karzai International Airport. America has a moral obligation to our citizens and loyal allies, and we must make sure that obligation is being kept. Like many veterans, we have spent the last few weeks working without sleep to try to get as many people as we could through the gates and to safety.

As Members of Congress, we have a duty to provide oversight on the executive branch. There is no place in the world right now where oversight matters more. We conducted this visit in secret, speaking about it only after our departure, to minimize the risk and disruption to the people on the ground, and because we were there to gather information, not to grandstand. We left on a plane with empty seats, seated in crew-only seats to ensure that nobody who needed a seat would lose one because of our presence.

Washington should be ashamed of the position we put our service members in, but they represent the best in America. These men and women have been run ragged and are still running strong. Their empathy and dedication to duty are truly inspiring. The acts of heroism and selflessness we witnessed at HKIA make America proud.

We came into this visit wanting, like most veterans, to push the president to extend the August 31st deadline. After talking with commanders on the ground and seeing the situation here, it is obvious that because we started the evacuation so late, that no matter what we do, we won’t get everyone out on time, even by September 11. Sadly and frustratingly, getting our people out depends on maintaining the current, bizarre relationship with the Taliban.

In the coming days, we will have more to share with our colleagues and the American people about what we learned, but after meeting with Marines, soldiers, and dedicated State Department officials on the ground—we want the world to know first and foremost that we have never been prouder to be Americans.

What a disaster. Whether the President likes it, or not, he is responsible for this disaster. He is the Commander in Chief, a constitutional responsibility of the President. He cannot foist this off on anyone else.

Clearly displaying the fear and loathing of those in power right now, Nancy Pelosi attacked the two congressmen. She’s busy carrying water for the President rather than doing her job as the leader of the House of Representatives.

The quotes in this CBS News article make it pretty clear that the Speaker of the House and the President are in complete alignment aimed at preventing any independent truth seeking or oversight. Here’s a few of them.

“We can confirm that we advise against any Americans, whether elected or not, attempting to travel to Kabul right now,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said late Tuesday. “The focus must continue to be evacuating American citizens and our Afghan partners who fought alongside us for the last twenty years, and that is best left in the hands of our the Department of Defense and the State Department.” [Eric: the same people that royally screwed this thing up for 20 years? Well, that seems smart.]

“It’s selfish, irresponsible, and dangerous for our brave women and men on the ground. They will be occupying seats on their return to the U.S. that should be going to those in need,” a U.S. official told CBS News. [Eric: according to the Congressmen, that is factually untrue.]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged members of Congress not to travel to Afghanistan or the region, citing a request from the Defense Department and State Department. [Eric: I’ll just note, again, that these are the people that have got us into this situation over the past 20 years]

And it continues on in this same vein. Read the whole thing, if you can stomach it. Personally, I can’t stomach any of this. Our “elites” who aren’t worthy of any sort of meritocracy. Our “President”, who is clearly incompetent, senile, or worse. Our Congressional “Leadership” who only care to carry water for their “President”.

It is truly disgusting.

But bravo to Rep Moulton and Rep Meijer for doing their jobs!

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Why Are We Cowering?

This is insane. The President of the United States and the Generals leading the United States military are cowering in Afghanistan in the face of some raggedy mountain terrorists.

When the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan on Feb 15, 1989, they marched out in good order. All Soviet citizens and military left on the ground into Uzbekistan. The last man out was the Red Army’s commanding general. He told the reporters at the bridge that he crossed that he was the last man out.

This is how you do it. And the Soviet Union was a collapsing joke. A bare 10 months later, the Soviet Union would withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and it’s empire would collapse. Not long after, the Communist government itself collapsed. Yet, somehow, they had the backbone to make damn sure they got all of their people out of Afghanistan. As their empire was collapsing around them. Not just their empire, but their entire ideology and belief system.

The last time America was in a position at all like this was in Vietnam in 1975. Except that in Vietnam, we defeated the VietCong and threw the North Vietnamese Army out of South Vietnam in 1972. And then we negotiated a treaty called the Paris Peace Accords in 1973 where both the US and North Vietnam agreed to leave South Vietnam. 16 months later, in 1975, the North Vietnamese broke that treaty and invaded South Vietnam. And Joe Biden, who was a US Senator, was one of the key folks in preventing the US from providing any aid to South Vietnam at all.

That is one way that today is similar to 1975. Joe Biden, and most of the senior people around him, abandoned South Vietnam as well.

Now, the US is begging Afghanistan’s Taliban warlords to let us have a few more days. Joe Biden is telling us in press conferences that he is asking for more time.

“Please sir, may I just have a few more days?” ….. Seriously, does that sound right to you?

So, why are we cowering like this? Were we defeated by the Taliban? No, not even once. Just like the war in Vietnam, we never lost militarily. And we had fought to the Taliban to a standstill and forced them to negotiate in 2018-19 timeframe. They did negotiate and we agreed to a “peace with honor”, much like Vietnam in 1972 and 1973. This may be sounding familiar

Now, suddenly, we are withdrawing without a plan. Giving up all that we won with our blood and treasure. Leaving the women of Afghanistan to the tender mercies of medieval savages. Why are we doing this? I’ll tell you …. It’s very simple.

We are currently led by people that are cowards, that do not care about this country, it’s citizens, it’s military, or it’s position in the world. We are actually led by cowards. Hell, the Russian Communists were tougher in the face of the death of their country and ideology than the American Democrats are able to be as the most powerful country the world has ever seen.

But if we had any sort of real leadership in the White House and the Pentagon, we would know it’s not up to the Taliban. It’s up to us. Withdraw in a way that safeguards our civilians, soldiers, and close allies in the country. Tell the Taliban this is how it will be. Or they can face the wrong end of a C-130 gunship as our infantry, artillery, and special operations units clean their clock one more time in Kabul.

We are absolutely cowering in Afghanistan in the face of our enemies.

Except this President, and his woke Generals, have no clue how to do that. They are weak, ineffective, and incompetent.

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Economic Crisis Is Upon Us

From the beginning, it was obvious that the business shutdowns, home lockdowns, and unemployment turned into living wage of the Pandemic Era was going to create an economic crisis. The question was whether it would be big or small.

And the answer is becoming more and more clear by the day. Continue reading

Posted in Economy, Government, Pandemic | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

It’s The Job, Stop Making Us Into Whimps

Today the President basically likened the US Military to Boy Scouts with this statement:

“Make no mistake, this evacuation mission is dangerous. It involves risks to our armed forces, and it’s being conducted under difficult circumstances,”

Ummm, no shit asshole. That’s what we do. The US Army (and Navy, Air Force, and Marines) do dangerous stuff. We go in harm’s way. It’s our job. We don’t do it when it’s easy. I served in the US Army, as a tank crewman, for 11 years. We went into danger. We volunteered for it. It’s what warriors do.

Stop making excuses. I am certain that my brothers and sisters in the military stand ready to go and take care of the people in Afghanistan that need to be taken care of. And they will do it without worry about it being “difficult circumstances”.

Serious, Mr. President, you need to man up and be the commander in chief.

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What About The Women in Afghanistan?

The reports from Afghanistan about the fate of the women there aren’t good. Women in Afghanistan are destroying their college diplomas and evidence that they worked, have an education, or anything else that the 12th century barbarians might deem worth stoning them to death. Or gouging their eyes out with a knife after shooting the pregnant woman EIGHT TIMES because she dared to work outside the home.

Continue reading

Posted in Afghanistan, Joe Biden, Taliban | 3 Comments