Glenn Beck’s NRA-ILA Leadership Forum Speech

A fair number of highlights.  Good speech.

Some folks don’t like his delivery (just a tad melodramatic at times), but few can argue against the actual message.

State Department Shuts Down Defense Distributed

From The Truth About Guns:

A tweet from Cody Wilson reveals the truth about the Liberator pistol project: the D0D has requested that Defense Distributed remove their files from the internet, and Cody Wilson has complied. Clicking on the Downloads tab at defcad.org yields this message: “DEFCAD files are being removed from public access at the request of the US Department of Defense Trade Controls. Until further notice, the United States government claims control of the information.” The DoD Trade Controls office is technically part of the State Department. As libertyandsuch.com points out, the mega-minds in the .gov are apparently some of the last people to figure out how the internet really works. DefDist’s CAD files are still available here.

They have a copy of the request letter as well.  The letter is rather interesting, since it basically comes down to the government deciding that he’s guilty until he proves himself innocent.  From another talk w/DefDist:

The government has provided a period of time for Defense Distributed to reply and prove that their actions were lawful.

–

DHS expressed some interest in the plastic Liberator as well.

Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed says he’s “looking forward to jail“.  Frankly, once the info is out, and it is, there’s nothing that the government can do about it.

–

HotAir has a piece on this as well, with a few other sources.

Defense Distributed’s Plastic Liberator

A friend of the blog sent this news story a few days back – from the UK Register:

Plans for fully 3D-printed gun go online next week
The Liberator pistol causes political panic

Defense Distributed, the pending non-profit that plans to make 3D-printed weaponry available for anyone with such a printer, will release the blueprints for a fully-working plastic firearm next week.

The UK Register is pretty open about their bias in the story, which they at least try to make funny, but it’s on the level of McNugget jokes.  But they do point out that Democrats have never seen anything they don’t wish to control.

“Security checkpoints, background checks, and gun regulations will do little good if criminals can print plastic firearms at home and bring those firearms through metal detectors with no one the wiser,” said Congressman Steve Israel (D-NY) in a statement.

“When I started talking about the issue of plastic firearms months ago,” Israel said, “I was told the idea of a plastic gun is science-fiction. Now that this technology appears to be upon us, we need to act now to extend the ban on plastic firearms.”

HotAir today has a story citing that ol’ Chuck Schumer, who’s never met a ban he didn’t like, and demands total control over you groveling peasants who need to kneel before his Ruling Class dictatorial power – because it’s what’s good for you – also wants to ban it.

Bloomberg’s own pet news agency even criticizes Schumer and thinks they need to forget about plastic guns and ban the rest first.

Should we light our hair on fire about plastic guns made with 3D printers?

Too late for Senator Charles Schumer. The combustible New York Democrat is encouraging hysteria over the prospect of criminals using 3D printers to manufacture firearms, possibly to assassinate the president. “We’re facing a situation where anyone—a felon, a terrorist—can open a gun factory in their garage ,and the weapons they make will be undetectable,” Schumer said. “It’s stomach-churning.”

Bloomberg’s own people don’t care about actual criminals, though:

…If you’ve got the skills, you can already make a gun in your basement, and there are less complicated ways to do it than using a $10,000 3D printer and computer set-up. Why would bad guys bother making comic book firearms when they can go online and order anything from a Glock 9 mm pistol to a Bushmaster military-style semiautomatic rifle with 30-round ammunition magazines?

Perhaps the evil doer wouldn’t want to leave a credit-card trail. Then he pays cash at a Main Street gun shop, a weekend gun show, or to the criminal down the block who sells black market firepower from the trunk of his car. Or the crook steals or borrows his gun.

Point being, ban real guns first.  Get the “dangerous ones”, then ban all the rest.

-

The plastic Liberator pistol is a very interesting thing, and not just in its mechanics.

Perhaps the most interesting is what’s in the name.  A Russian professor of mine that taught Chekhov explained that Chekhov’s names always were indicative of the character; and names are often very, very important.  Going a very long way back in history, true names were a method to power over someone – either due to knowing someone and being able to identify them in a time before pictures, or out of a very early belief in names as a form of magic.  Here, too, in a very fascinating way, the name was chosen for a reason, and is very indicative of what this pistol really represents.

Here with the plastic Liberator, we have all that liberty and liberation connotates, that this will free the information and free the people to have the tools to arm themselves against tyranny.  We also have its historical antecedent, the FP-45 Liberator pistol:

It was made on the cheap, and made to be distributed to resistance fighters.

It had abysmal accuracy, but the purpose of the pistol was very specific.

It was made to shoot occupying forces up close and personal.  It was made to shoot Nazi dictator thugs at extreme close range.

–

Some computer geeks at The Verge yammer on about the convergence between “crypto-anarchists” and guns, but for them, history doesn’t exist before the Palo Alto labs, apparently.

Cyberculture icon Stewart Brand’s famous notion that “information wants to be free” has been an almost ubiquitous refrain ever since utopian-minded hackers began populating computer networks in the 1980s. Today, 3D printing has given the phrase a whole new meaning, allowing raw data to become real world weapons with the click of a button. Cody R. Wilson, the antagonistic founder of Defense Distributed, is taking that idea to its logical — and hugely controversial — extreme.

Except it’s not an extreme at all…

(DefCad’s) his reasoning, he claims, isn’t really about the Second Amendment at all — it’s about technological progress rendering the very concept of gun control meaningless.

“It’s more radical for us,” he told Motherboard in “Click Print Gun,” a recent mini-doc about the dark side of the 3D printing revolution. “There are people all over the world downloading our files and we say ‘good.’ We say you should have access to this. You simply should.”

If this all sounds very similar to the good gospel spread by Brand and advanced by progressives and activists like the late Aaron Swartz, you’re hearing it right. But even without the context of Wilson’s operation, firearms and freedom of information share a strangely similar history, an oft-overlooked ideological confluence between hackers and gun advocates that seems to be gaining momentum.

Except it’s not extreme at all, as guns existed well before computers…

If you go back before 1934, there were no restrictions on guns except if you were black or another wrong color/status.  There were restrictions on people, and that’s what was understood.  Guns aren’t dangerous, criminals are dangerous because they don’t restrict themselves to any laws or social mores.  Guns weren’t dangerous to the people in power, freed black former slaves with guns were dangerous, because guns are tools of power.  Today, as then, it’s not the guns that are dangerous – Schumer and his ilk are surrounded by security with guns and send their kids to schools with guns and will come after you with guns – it’s you being armed that’s dangerous to his power.  Guns are just a tool, as they always have been.

Guns used to be made by smiths, but anyone with access to some basic tools and a bit of skill can make them.  Zip guns have been made out of virtually nothing for decades.  Submachineguns are relatively easy to make, and some famous SMGs were even made in facilities as simple as bicycle shops.

The next leftist dictator-tyrant argument is then to control ammo and powder, which has a few major flaws.  Namely, their enforcers use them, and their enforcers provide criminals with guns and ammo, so the criminal argument goes right out the window.  Of course it isn’t about criminals, it’s about making you into a criminal so they can tell you how to live and make you live the right way.  It’s never about the guns, it’s about the control.  Components to make ammunition aren’t impossible to come by, and conventional ammunition is only needed once – until an armed instrument of the state has his tools liberated.

The entire concept of homemade guns isn’t extreme.  Going back a few decades, not only could you buy a machinegun by mail, no matter who you were, but you could build whatever you liked.  There was a great heyday of gun manufacturing in the early 20th century before regulations started becoming overwhelming.  John Moses Browning was designing his greatest works in the early 20th Century – from pistols to machineguns, many of which are still in use today.  Consider that the M2 heavy machine gun is something that’s been in service for nearly 100 years.  It’s not that there aren’t more designers for weapons with better ideas, it’s that government regulations have limited the marketplace and made it more difficult to experiment.  Government has stalled technological development – developments that used to be made in mechanic shops when designers and engineers and skilled craftsmen got together and designed new tools.

There were virtually no regulations or restrictions on firearms for a hundred years or more, with the exception of those laws meant to target blacks, American Indians, and other specific groups that the majority wanted to oppress; and a few local laws.

Defense Distributed to some degree is just bringing things back to how they were for generations.  Before, the government trusted citizens and so it didn’t restrict citizens, soon, the government simply won’t be able to restrict citizens; and if they do restrict enough, there will be tools of liberation available.

29% Of Registered Voters Ready To Join The Wolverines

From CNS News:

Twenty-nine percent of registered voters think that an armed revolution might be necessary in the next few years in order to protect liberties, according to a Public Mind poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University.

That’s somewhat substantial.

The survey asked whether respondents agreed, disagreed, neither agreed nor disagreed or did not know or refused to respond to the statement: “In the next few years, an armed revolution might be necessary in order to protect our liberties“

Pretty clear statement.

Results of the poll show that those who believe a revolution might be necessary differ greatly along party lines:

• 18 percent of Democrats

• 27 percent of Independents

• 44 percent of Republicans

That’s very substantial.  Consider that only about 3% was historically necessary.

Sarah Palin Freedom Speech at NRA-ILA Leadership Forum

Worth watching.

Made a few waves in the media, too.

Ted Cruz at NRA-ILA Leadership Forum

Very much worth watching.  He hits on the fact that Obama hasn’t enforced gun laws, yet still wants more gun laws, and that Obama cut school safety funding.

-

HotAir has a good roundup of other quotes from the NRA-ILA Leadership Forum.

Obama Blames US For Gun Violence In Mexico

I’m going to use the same title that Real Clear Politics did.

This is the same Obama who had Eric Holder’s DOJ and ATF sending guns to Mexican narcoterrorist cartels.  This is the same Obama who hushed Fast and Furious up by exerting executive privilege.  He sent guns to Mexico.

This is not a question of American citizens’ rights, this is a question of the US government purposely arming narcoterrorists in order to have this talking point, claiming the 90% lie over and over.

I can’t think of many things more insulting or downright foul to hear from our President other than his own crimes being blamed on our rights – as was intended.   He is now going international with the demand that our rights go away because he committed crimes… to deny us those rights.

–

This is like a rapist saying “not only did she deserve it when I did it to her, but that proves my point, we have to keep the world safe from women like her who cause rape”.

Gunwalker Update: Fast and Furious Lawsuit Slowly Moving and the Wide Receiver Story

First update on the civil suit against the Justice Department, from UT San Diego:

WASHINGTON — A federal judge seemed skeptical Wednesday of the Justice Department’s bid to dismiss a congressional lawsuit seeking records related to Operation Fast and Furious, a bungled federal gun-tracking operation in Arizona.

It was not a gun-tracking operation.  It was not bungled.  It did exactly what it was set out to do, it sent guns to Mexican narcoterrorist cartels, and it forced US gun stores to sell to people who should never have gotten guns.  There was no tracking involved, as whistleblower John Dodson stated – they were not allowed to track guns sent south, and they were intended to be recovered at crime scenes.  People buying guns included felons who could not have passed NICS background checks, except that the government gave them permission to buy guns by letting them pass background checks.

When asked about the breakdown, Stephen Fischer, a spokesman for the NICS System, said the FBI had no comment. However, an ATF agent who worked on the Fast and Furious investigation, told Fox News that NICS officials called the ATF in Phoenix whenever their suspects tried to buy a gun. That conversation typically led to a green light for the buyers, when it should have stopped them.

From the UD SD story again, the judge is at least doing her job:

Judge Amy Berman Jackson sharply challenged the department’s claim that federal courts have no jurisdiction in the dispute. Department lawyer Ian Gershengorn said the battle over the documents should be resolved by the checks and balances between the legislative and executive branches.

“I’m a check and balance,” countered Jackson, an appointee of President Barack Obama. “The third branch exists.”

Well, she seems better than other Obama appointments.  And she seems to understand that there has been no “check and balance” when the Department of Justice and the president have simply claimed executive privilege and hushed everything up – which is the reason for the lawsuit.  She is seeing things up close, so she probably has to acknowledge what’s going on.  She’s being presented with information directly, and can’t just ignore things like the media does.

To some degree, this is also a story of how the media not only gets it wrong, but how the media is carrying water for Obama.

The department has turned over thousands of pages of material on the operation itself. The continuing dispute is over documents describing how the department responded once Congress started investigating.

That’s what the Justice Department sent as “documents”.  Page after page after page.

Gershengorn said that if the suit were dismissed, Congress had other powers at its disposal, such as the power of the purse. He said that negotiations and accommodation between the House and the executive branch are messy and contentious, but that the system allows for accountability with voters.

That is absurd, insulting, and the kind of thing that would get Sam Adams heating up the tar and sending somebody to get feathers.  The DOJ is hushing up a the murder of two federal agents and hundreds of mexican citizens, hushing up their program that is the kind of violent criminal conspiracy that would make headlines for years if it were done by organized crime, but instead, is hushed up because the media simply refuses to report it, and refuses to report the truth because they love their great leader.

Saying that Congress can simply use “the power of the purse” to reduce budgets for departments is absurd.  No one is held accountable for this:

People need to go to prison, not have their department funding meddled with.  The DOJ lawyer Gershengorn should be with them as an accomplice after the fact to murders.

House lawyer Kerry Kircher called the notion that there haven’t been meaningful negotiations and accommodations “preposterous.”

“We’ve been negotiating for four months,” Kircher said.

He also said the House was at a disadvantage.

“This is an asymmetrical relationship here,” Kircher said. “They have the documents. We don’t have the documents.”

As to Congress’ powers, such as reducing spending for the executive branch, he said, “All that means is they get less money” – not that the committee gets the documents.

Presented with this kind of thing, I’d like to say the judge won’t just rule in favor of who appointed her, but there’s little telling.

–

David Codrea at Examiner.com has some info on “Guns Across the Border“, a book that tells the story of Operation Wide Receiver.

“Operation Wide Receiver,” a precursor to “Operation Fast and Furious” wherein U.S. guns were bought by straw purchasers and “walked” under the noses of ATF investigators into Mexico, has been the subject of numerous Gun Rights Examiner reports. The central figure in those reports was Mike Detty, a gun writer, a firearms dealer, and the confidential informant who literally risked his life over the course of years to do what he believed was right, only to find the obvious criminals weren’t the only ones he couldn’t trust.

Operation Wide receiver really was a botched sting.  The ATF in Mexico knew that guns were coming, the Mexican authorities knew guns were coming.  The smugglers turned out to be good at smuggling and got a lot of guns past both US and Mexican authorities through a variety of tactics.  Smugglers are good at smuggling?  Who’da thunk it?

Fast and Furious, by contrast, was not a botched sting.  The ATF in Mexico (ATF attache Darren Gil) and the Mexican authorities had no idea guns were coming, and the purpose was to find guns at murder scenes in Mexico, about which ATF supervisors were “almost giddy”.

Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious were two different things.  Bob Owens at PJ Media did a solid bit on this explaining it further:

Wide Receiver sought to track and interdict guns being smuggled south using a combination of RFID-tracking devices embedded in the shipments and overheard surveillance aircraft. Wide Receiver failed because of the limitations of the technology used, compounded by the ineptness of its installation and the unexpected resourcefulness of the cartel’s gun smugglers.

As a result of the mistakes made in Wide Receiver, guns were lost: approximately 450 made it into Mexico. As a result, the botched operation launched in 2006 — and in this instance, actually botched — was shut down in 2007.

Compare the mistakes of Wide Receiver to the operations launched under Eric Holder’s Department of Justice, which had the advantages of learning from the postmortem failures of Wide Receiver two years before.

Fast and Furious used neither tracking devices nor aircraft, ran interference for smugglers with local law enforcement on multiple occasions, and federal agents were not allowed to interdict weapons.

Wide Receiver shut down within a year after 450 weapons went missing in a botched law enforcement operation. Fast and Furious purposefully ran at least 2,020 weapons to the Sinaloa cartel without any intention of arresting the straw purchasers and smugglers. Other operations in other states — CBS News’ Attkisson cites allegations of “at least 10 cities in five states” — allow the possibility that (if the other operations were as prolific as Fast and Furious) Holder’s Department of Justice may have intentionally sent more than 12,000 guns into criminal hands in the U.S and Mexico, enough to arm three U.S. Army brigades.

Law enforcement operations sometimes go horribly wrong, and every indication is that Operation Wide Receiver executed by the ATF during the Bush administration while Alberto Gonzales was the attorney general was a “keystone cops” operation of the first magnitude. It was a horrible failure.

But Fast and Furious was no accident.

High Capacity Magazine PSA

From MB Studio Productions:

They note in their youtube comments section that technically, they’re talking about standard capacity magazines, but they’re using the media term to garner attention.

It’s also reminiscent of this disturbing ad by the Montana Meth Project.

-

To gun-hating tyrants, the magic number is ultimately zero, whether it be pistol or rifle or shotgun.

Manchin And Toomey Still After Your Rights

From Newser, the Black Tie yacht drunks are back and still after your rights, peasant:

(Newser) – The push for stricter gun laws might not be quite so dead after all in the Senate. The New York Times reports that efforts are “quietly” underway to get something done on background checks and illegal trafficking. Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey, the co-sponsors of the background-check bill that got yanked last week, say they have been talking to colleagues to get rid of some objectionable loopholes. One potential compromise would allow a person who lives in a rural area to sell a weapon to someone without having to find a sporting goods store to facilitate.

So they’re admitting that they’re targeting “urban” people?  At least they’re getting more honest about their racism.

Looks like that’ll be a 14th Amendment violation for lack of equal protection under the law.

A separate initiative to crack down on illegal trafficking, which includes buying a weapon for someone who can’t legally own one, is being spearheaded by Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand and Republicans Kelly Ayotte and Chuck Grassley.

That last name is very interesting.  Chuck Grassley has been the spearhead of the senate move against Obama’s Fast and Furious program wherein the ATF gave guns to the Mexican narcoterrorist cartels.  He’s well aware of how anti-gun this administration is, he’s seen how the Department of Justice has held back and said nothing about Fast and Furious, and he’s well aware of the violent hatred of the Constitution demonstrated by this adminstration when it used the ATF to undermine the Second Amendment in order to push for gun control and oppression of citizens.  He’s very knowledgeable on the subject.

The story notes this at the end:

Gun-control supporters are working on a national campaign to put pressure on those in the “no” camp.

Yup.  They never stop.  Ever.  They have a need to destroy your rights.  It’s what they do, it’s all they do, and they will never, ever stop until they have their boot stamping on a human face forever.