Friday, July 18, 2025

The Dishonesty Of The Left When It Comes To Birthright Citizenship

My example is a an article from Time Magazine entitled: "History Shows Why Birthright Citizenship is so Important". The gist of this article is that the purpose of the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment was to ensure that freed black slaves were considered American citizens, which is amply supported by the debates over the Amendment. But the article then suddenly asserts that import of the clause goes well beyond that goal. Specifically, the author asserts that the 14th Amendment "only made three exceptions to the ironclad guarantee of birthright citizenship: children born to foreign diplomats in the U.S., children born in U.S. territory occupied by enemy soldiers, and Native Americans." 

    This is, of course, a lie. The citizenship clause provides: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." There is no express exception for children of foreign diplomats, invaders, or American Indians, nor is the exception provided limited to only those three classes. Rather, those are recognized exceptions derived from the "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" language because they were classes of persons still subject to the jurisdiction of other governments. As would be citizens of Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, or any other foreign country who for whatever reason, legal or illegal, found themselves upon American soil. The Time article tacitly recognizes this reasoning, because it explains that "[t]he exclusion of Indigenous people was out of deference to their citizenship in their own Native nations." 

Why The WSJ Ran The Trump/Epstein Story

The Wall Street Journal is breathlessly reporting that Trump wrote a note to Epstein for his (Epstein's) 50th Birthday which apparently included a hand drawn picture of a nude woman. This is before Epstein's run in with the law. Moreover, Trump has denied it was his and the Wall Street Journal has no independent verification of its authenticity. At least one pundit believes that Maurene Comey (James Comey's daughter, one of the attorneys that headed up the prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell and who was just fired by the DOJ) is behind this story. But it is interesting that the WSJ article came out at the same time as the Trump Administration released a cache of documents showing that "the Obama Administration 'manufactured and politicized intelligence' to make it appear that Russia and criminal actors impacted the 2016 election." 

    So, is this just a case of sour grapes by James Comey's daughter? Intended to distract from "Russia, Russia, Russia" hoax? Both? Or something else?  

Feds Give Up Defending Pistol Brace Rule

Guns.com reports that the federal government has dropped all further appeals of a decision in Mock v Bondi where the court had overturned an ATF rule banning pistol braces, giving a win to gun owners

The Natives Are Getting Restive

The natives are getting restive, as they say. On July 12 a brand new Mosque in Piera, Catalonia, Spain, was burned to the ground. The quislings have come out to support the invaders, including a Catholic bishop that condemned the burning of the Mosque and offered church resources to assist the local Muslim community. Although I have been unable to statistics on the number of Christian churches attacked in Spain, it is notable that in January there were two arson attacks within just days of each other against the 15th-century Church of San Miguel in Jerez de la Frontera. And this was against a backdrop of an increasing number of attacks on Christian churches in Western Europe. This 2024 article, for instance, notes that according to a company that insures churches, there had been over 200 incidents of arson against churches in England in the prior 5 years; and in France "[t]here were 102 arson attacks on churches reported in the five years 2018-2022 classed as 'hate crimes', according to data from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which reveals that Christianity is usually the most targeted religion in France in any given year." So, one mosque versus probably hundreds of churches in Spain--it is pretty easy to see who is winning.

    While we are still on the subject of Spain, Paul Joseph Watson has a video about anti-immigrant protests in a small town in Spain where natives are tired of being afraid of going out at night because of migrant crime:

VIDEO: "They're Sick Of It" -- Paul Joseph Watson (8 min).

    Turning to the UK, several days ago, residents of a small British town, Epping, began protesting outside a hotel used to house migrants after a newly arrived illegal sexually assaulted young girls. (More recent articles indicate he has only been charged with assaulting a single girl). Those that support sex crimes being committed against children showed up to counterprotest, causing some violence to break out. But that was not enough to discourage locals from showing up again for a second protest. This time, as the video below shows, the police resorted to running over protestors with police vans and have otherwise brutalized the locals protesting the crimes. Nevertheless, in true Orwellian fashion, the media is reporting the incident as police being attacked by protestors; e.g. "Officers attacked at hotel protest, say police" (BBC), "Epping protest: Police hunt thugs after officers injured amid violent scenes outside migrant hotel" (London Evening Standard). The latter article notes that police are already combing through security footage to identify people to arrest. No doubt cell phone records will also be used. 

VIDEO: "Furious UK locals clash with police after asylum seeker charged with sexual assault of schoolgirl"--Sky News Australia (4 min.)

Thursday, July 17, 2025

VIDEO: What Is A Pocket Pistol?

In this video, Paul Whaley (who writes for Primer Peak) discusses what is a pocket pistol, what characteristics he looks for in a pocket pistol he would use for concealed carry, and why a pocket pistol works so well in a non-permissive environment, even if you intend to carry somewhere other than the pocket. 

    I had recently written a bit about pocket pistols in my Gun & Prepping News #35, and I was glad to see Whaley mirror one of those comments: that just because you can stuff a gun in a pocket does not make it a pocket pistol. 

VIDEO: "What is a Pocket Pistol Anyway? (a Discussion of Small Handguns)"
Paul W. (9 min.)

What Trump Is Overlooking About The Epstein Records

 Miranda Devine authored an op-ed for the New York Post today on "How Trump can fix the Epstein mess that’s ripping his party apart." In it, she notes that "the Epstein scandal is symbolic of the absence of accountability for past crimes against the American people," but "[t]he president, who won in part by echoing deep distrust in the institutions and stoking legitimate grievances, hasn’t delivered heads on pikes." I think she is correct and that the President has grossly misread the room, so to speak, in believing that the Epstein controversy is unimportant. Moreover, MAGA did not back the President just to try and right the ship--they want revenge on those who persecuted and, in some cases, prosecuted them. But even some justice will suffice.

    It may be true that in the grand scheme of things--the border, expelling illegals, dealing with Russia, China, and Iran, trade negotiations, cutting the size of government, etc.--that the Epstein issue is but a minor distraction. But, if nothing else, it has a strong symbolic importance. Devine notes in her piece a Rasmussan poll showing that "[r]oughly two-thirds of every political category — 68% of Democrats, 66% of Republicans and 69% of unaffiliated voters — reject the idea that the Epstein case is closed and instead believe that there are dozens of powerful and wealthy offenders who need to face justice." So what is at issue here is government legitimacy. Not a trivial issue. 

    While we will always live in a society where there are different rules for the elites and the common people, legitimacy in a modern Democracy requires that the people at least believe that the elites are broadly subject to the same laws. Refusal to prosecute Epstein's clients (or visitors or whatever you want to call them) only emphasizes that the elites enjoy different rules. 

    Even worse for purposes of maintaining legitimacy, the failure to prosecute plays into the speculation that Epstein was an intelligence asset working for Mossad, the CIA, "Management" or some other organization, to collect blackmail on powerful people in government, finance, and industry in order to control them and, by extension, shape U.S. policy. Does Trump really want a super-majority of the American people wondering if Israel is controlling U.S. policy by blackmailing key figures? I don't know. Maybe he does.

    And who knows? Maybe the speculation is true and a proper investigation and prosecutions would free the United States from the clutches of tyrants?  

Bombs & Bants # 160 (Streamed 7/16/2025)

 In this latest Bombs & Bants, we discuss (of course) the Epstein list. Also, President Trump's first nomination for "Jackass of the Week" for his comments about people that want to see the list released (he lost to a commie from the National Education Association trying to whip up members in a Nuremberg style rally), and my "Two Minutes Of Guns In One Minute". Enjoy! 

 VIDEO: "Bombs and Bants Episode 160" (55 min.)

Gun & Prepping News #38

 Just some gun and prepping related links that I thought interesting or useful: 

  • First up, Jon Low has a new Defensive Pistolcraft newsletter. I'm still going through it so I don't have a list of articles or advice that especially piqued my attention, but at the top of the newsletter and in the email he sends out to subscribers, Jon linked to an article entitled "The Second Amendment:  Understanding The Militia Clause" by Alex Ooley. 
  • For those that handload, or are interested in learning how to handload, RCBS has a "Reloading Hub" with various articles and tips on handloading ammunition.  
  • "Seeing Red – Red Dot Drills to Master Your Pistol"--Ammo Land.  For those of you new to using a red dot on a handgun, Travis Pike has some drills to help you practice the transition; especially learning how to pick up the dot reticle when you first draw and present the firearm.
  • And another drill, but for a group of people: "My Favorite Pressure Testing Drill"--Tactical Professor. 

    It’s called ‘Everyone shoots against everyone.’ Using an execution matrix, I have every student shoot a short bout against every other student. Not consecutively, though. It’s not a mystery, I just run down the matrix and pair up names.

    Logistically, all that’s required is two pepper poppers and two shoot boxes. The shooting is static. The drill is simple. Two shooters, two poppers, one signal. First to drive his/her popper down is the winner.

    Where it gets difficult for the shooters is ramping their focus up and down over the course of an hour or so. Shooters do a lot of standing around and then get quickly called to shoot while the poppers are being reset. I do that timing deliberately. 

  • "Straight Talk About Reloading In Gunfights"--Revolver Guy. Boiled to its essence, the author reminds us that reloading in a gunfight is not like reloading at the range or what you see in action movies: you can't just stand in the open and do a quick reload, you need to get to cover where you will have time to reload without being shot.
  • A couple from The Firearm Blog on less-than-lethal defensive tools:
  • "A Better Way to Zero and Sight in Your Rifle"--Outdoor Life. This is a detailed article. The author's method uses only 20 rounds. And the reason it is so high is because the author advocates for using groups larger than 3 or 5 rounds, but says we need to fire at least 10 rounds, and preferably 20 rounds, to get a real ideal of what our firearm is doing. 

    Getting 20-shot group data is easier than you might think. You simply shoot a series of [3 to 5 round] groups at different aiming points without adjusting your scope and then break out your first-grade art skills to plot them on a single piece of paper around a single aiming point.

    Once you have all your dots on the paper, you can use the group analysis tool in the Hornady 4DOF app to calculate the group size, mean radius, and where the center of the group is in relation to your aiming point. This last bit allows you to make one accurate adjustment to your scope to truly zero your rifle. The basic 4DOF app is free, but the group analysis upgrade costs $4.99. The Ballistic X app also does this and can be purchased for a reasonable fee of $7.99. 

There is a video included in the article, as well as links to targets to download to use in this process. Be sure to read the whole thing if you intend on trying this out. In fact, you probably will want to print it out. 

  • “Safety? Who Needs a Safety?”--Tactical Wire. The author reviews Ruger's new version of the LCP Max sporting a manual safety. But he does briefly address the issue of whether a safety is needed:

    Of what import is a safety lever? On a gun to be regularly carried in close concealment (this LCP is supplied with a nylon pocket holster), the safety can “take the worry out of being close.”

    The general complaint about manual safety levers is “You’ll never remember to take it off when you need to shoot.”

    Cool story. But the chances are greater that something will encroach on the trigger when trying to place the gun in deep concealment, with loud and embarrassing consequences. 

A new report from the Council on Criminal Justice revealing an increase in firearms thefts from parked cars over a five-year study period (2018-2022) overlooks one major component of the problem: the necessity for legally-armed citizens to leave their firearms before entering so-called “gun-free zones,” the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms observed. 

This is how it works: Step one, acquire statistics on firearm-related deaths among children ages 0 to 14. Step two, combine that relatively low number with the far greater number of firearm-related deaths involving juveniles and young adults ages 15 to 17, 15 to 19, or even ages 15 to 24. Step three, present the resulting data as the shocking number of “children” (ages 0 to 17, 0 to 19 or 0 to 24) who are subjected to “gun violence” each day/week/month/year. Step four, use the disingenuous statistic to advocate for pre-determined gun control policies by claiming “gun violence is the leading cause of death of children.” 

  • "Why Squirrel Hunting is Better Suppressed"--American Hunter. Basically the same concept as when hunting wild pigs: the suppressed shot is less likely to scare away other squirrels. Also a good overview of suppressors for .22 and a couple recommendations. 
  • "Why Every American Should Own a Plate Carrier (And Plates)"--SOFREP.  Ajita Sherer boils it down to this simple reason: for the modern militiaman, or anyone fearing civil unrest, your load-out starts with a rifle and armor. But if you plan on being a militiaman, you also need to include a helmet. In any event, Sherer also briefly goes over different types of loadouts and the pros and cons of different types of hard armor. Unfortunately, he doesn't discuss the composite ceramic and polyethylene armor that we are seeing for lower priced Level III+ and IV armor. 
  • "Prepping isn’t just for preppers anymore—it’s time to get a go-bag"--Popular Science.  The article describes "[h]ow to pack a go bag, a shelter-in-place bag, an emergency car kit, and an everyday carry." A pretty decent article (complete with graphics) on basics to include in various types of kits or bags. But the author also tries to explain why everyone should at least try to have some minimal preparations:

    The very idea of a “prepper” being some societal outlier would have been laughable to our ancestors. I’ve learned, in my two decades studying how human communities react to stress and even disasters, that prepping used to be built into our cultural practices. What changed? Our modern Western, market-integrated lifestyle puts forth the illusion that we don’t need to be prepared. We all drank that collectively comforting Kool-Aid that said there was no need to have supplies on hand in case of an emergency—you can just go to the store. Nor would you need to consider what you’d do in the event of a fire or a flood—insurance will take care of the damage, and surely FEMA or some other government agency will take care of you and your loved ones in the wake of a disaster.

    But not only is it unwise to depend on institutional power to manage risk on our behalf, it also deprives us of something fundamental to who we are: managing our own individual risk and participating in collective risk management, which are things we have done for as long as we’ve been human. In other words: humans are good at taking care of each other, and my research shows that we come out of hard times happier and healthier when we do so. 

Sanchez’s advice is tailored to women, including how to use a steel pen or hot coffee for self-defence, the dangers of driving with a claw clip in your hair and a recommendation for a portable toilet which can fit in your purse. 

 Liberal preppers differ from their rightwing counterparts because the calamities they anticipate have different characteristics. Rightwing bugbears like civil unrest and globalist tyranny lead to a focus on the stockpiling of weapons to defend one’s property and family from hostile adversaries. But concerns about global heating point to different notions of readiness. Climate breakdown – the destabilization of the entire ecological system on which our lives depend – is not a fleeting crisis one can ride out with a well-stocked arsenal and a few pallets from Costco. As Margaret Killjoy, who launched the prominent anarchist-prepper podcast Live Like the World Is Dying at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, put it: “There’s not much preparedness you can do for the end of the world.”

Rather than shake our heads at their ignorance and surprise when someone steals their food and rapes and murders their families, we should look to see if they have anything useful to offer:

    For Steffen and other preppers on the left, threat analysis begins with an understanding of network effects: how various social and economic systems work together to support our ongoing survival, or undermine it. Bald and bespectacled, with headphone wires dangling from his ears, he explained that the effects of climate collapse will be experienced as a series of localized disasters – flooding here, wildfire there – each requiring planning and forethought.

    “Every piece of infrastructure, every home, every community, every business, every industry, was built to work in a world that no longer exists,” he told us, adding that this ever-widening gap will be “ripping through every single person’s life”.

    Steffen’s prescription was “ruggedization”, a term borrowed from the military. Ruggedization, he explained, was “the design of a system such that it can take unexpected punishment and retain its core functions”. Its opposite he termed brittleness – “the condition of a thing being subject to sudden failure”. Our primary goal ahead of climate chaos was to recognize brittleness in the systems around us – from failing infrastructure to political ineptitude – and either remedy it or avoid it altogether. 

Wednesday, July 16, 2025

P.I.s That Hunt Down People Who Fake Their Deaths

An interesting article from MEL Magazine (via Get Pocket): "Inside the World of Investigators Who Know You’ve Faked Your Death." A brief look at how investigators, generally working for insurance companies, discover and track down people that have faked their own deaths. Much of it is comes down to people unable to completely leave their old lives behind. An excerpt:

We never hear from people who do this job well, but to succeed at pseudocide, you really do have to be prepared to give up everything you know and love — for good. You can’t talk to anyone you know (they’re being watched), you have to give up your pets (harder than family, sometimes) and you have to figure out how to support yourself off the books, getting paid under the table or in cash. Your college degree means nothing. Your specialized skill becomes useless. All of your hobbies and interests are bunk, because those things are precisely what investigators like Ahearn and Rambam will be analyzing obsessively for signs of you. Rambam once spent weeks going to mind-numbingly boring coin shows around New York City to locate a coin collector who had supposedly died, and that’s exactly where he caught him.  

Wilder on Epstein

John Wilder's latest post at his Wilder, Wealthy & Wise blog is "Epstein: How Deep Is The Rabbit Hole?," where he notes Epstein's odd background and unlikely advancement into the realm of the movers and shakers of the world. And Epstein's obsession with physics:

    [Eric Weinstein, a mathematician/physicist who met with Epstein in 2002]  figured that Epstein was like an intelligence “department store” where just one aspect of what he did was tied to the honey-trap.  He pointed to Epstein’s constant work with physicists working on fundamental science.  Remember, Robert Maxwell owned Pergamon Press, where all of the scientists would try to publish their groundbreaking work, for decades.

    Maxwell had the ability to see breakthroughs before they were public, and to suppress or, perhaps control the way that science has been developing.

    For decades.  Was Epstein an extension of Maxwell’s work?  Why else did Epstein stay so involved with advanced math and physics, even holding a conference of 21 top physicists, include three Nobel Prize winners at his house?

Read the whole thing. 

The Dishonesty Of The Left When It Comes To Birthright Citizenship

My example is a an article from Time Magazine entitled: " History Shows Why Birthright Citizenship is so Important ". The gist of ...