Independence Day

Today's memorial video - I was going to title this post "Happy Independence Day", but quite frankly, with the awful US Supreme Court decision upholding the abomination that is Obamacare, and the Court's apparent green-lighting of virtually unbridled further intrusions on personal liberty by Congress, there's not a general air of happiness afoot.

This video, with its symbolism of destruction and rebuilding, seemed more apropos:

Happy Birthday, America

Tonight's Independence Day video - Fireworks display from New York City 2008:

Happy Independence Day

Wishing you all a safe and happy Independence Day.

Happy Birthday, America!

Independence Day

Wishing you all a safe and happy Independence Day.

As we celebrate our freedom, take a moment to reflect on our founding document:

The Declaration of Independence

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

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.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Making History

Peggy Noonan has a great piece up at the WSJ, recapping some of the history of Independence Day, from David McCullough's book "John Adams":

Monday, July 1, was heavy and hot, and a full-scale summer storm passed through the city late in the morning. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania rose to speak. He knew he was endangering the respect in which he was broadly held, his "popularity," but he once again counseled caution: Slow down, separation from Britain is "premature," to declare independence now would be "to brave the storm in a skiff made of paper." When he sat down, "all was silent except for the rain that had begun spattering against the windows."

Then John Adams rose. He wished he had the power of the ancient orators of Greece and Rome, he said; surely they had never faced a question of greater human import.

He made, again, the case for independence. Now is the time, the facts are inescapable, the people are for it, we are not so much declaring as acknowledging reality. "Looking into the future [he] saw a new nation, a new time, all much in the spirit of lines he had written in a recent letter to a friend: '. . . We are in the very midst of revolution, the most complete, unexpected, and remarkable of any in the history of the world.' " Outside the wind picked up and the storm struck hard with thunder and lightning. Storms had in the past unnerved Adams, but he spoke steadily, logically and compellingly for two hours.

After nine hours of debate, the voting commenced. The yeses were in the majority, but there were more noes than expected. Someone moved a final vote be taken the next morning. Adams and the rest hastily agreed.

That night word reached Philadelphia that the British fleet, a hundred ships, had been sighted off New York.

The next day, July 2, the final voting began. It went quickly. This was a pivotal moment in the political history of man. A creative, imaginative, historically conscious person in the middle of a thing so huge and full of consequence will try to notice things, to keep them forever in his eyes and pass them on. Here is a thing John Adams would never forget:

At 9 in the morning, just as the doors to the Congress were to be closed, "Caesar Rodney, mud spattered, 'booted and spurred,' made his dramatic entrance. The tall, thin Rodney—the 'oddest-looking man in the world,' Adams once described him—had been made to appear stranger still, and more to be pitied, by a skin cancer on one side of his face that he kept hidden behind a scarf of green silk. But, as Adams had also recognized, Rodney was a man of spirit, of 'fire.' Almost unimaginably, he had ridden eighty miles through the night, changing horses several times, to be there in time to cast his vote."

All of these quotes are from David McCullough's "John Adams." More on Mr. McCullough in a moment.

The vote was completed: 12 for independence, New York abstaining, no one opposing. "The break was made, in words at least: on July 2, 1776, in Philadelphia, the American colonies declared independence. If not all 13 clocks had struck as one, twelve had, and with the others silent the effect was the same."

On July 3, Congress argued over the wording and exact content of the formal Declaration. An indictment of the slave trade was dropped. In all, Thomas Jefferson saw roughly 25% of what he'd written wind up on the floor.

On July 4, discussion ended, debate was closed, a vote on the final draft of the Declaration of Independence was called, and the results were as on July 2. Congress ordered the document be printed. They'd sign it in a month. For now, John Hancock and one other, Charles Thompson, fixed their signatures. ...

Read the rest here.

Gun Rights News Roundup

Articles, news stories, and op-eds of interest to gun owners:

Kirby Ferris writes at JPFO on the recent multiple killings of police officers in Oakland, CA and Pittsburgh, PA:

The relatively recent Oakland, California shooting of four police officers by an illegally armed felon on parole, and using a semi automatic rifle, fell short of the “gun control” crowd’s more comfortable formula. You see, it was already illegal for the paroled felon in Oakland to be in possession of any kind of firearm.

However, the immediately recent shooting deaths of three Pittsburgh, Pennysylvania police officers has “assault rifles” back in the news big time. This tragedy certainly has far more spin potential for the victim disarmament vermin in Congress and the mainstream media.

Apparently Richard Poplawski was a visitor and poster on a right wing, anti-Jewish website. He listened to “conspiratorialist” radio shows and watched controversial YouTube videos.

In the days ahead, watch the insidious twist that this will take in the mainstream media.

You MUST understand that there is a hidden, almost subliminal, message in these pronouncements about Poplawski:

“If you own a semi automatic rifle, an “assault rifle”, you are just like Richard Poplawski. You are a “right wing nut”, “anti-Semitic”, “delusional”, and, to cap it all off, a “conspiratorialist”. In short, you own a semi automatic rifle because you, like Poplawski, are CRAZY and PARANOID!”

In the days ahead, every effort will be made to shame American gun owners with this sort of thinly veiled innuendo.

“No one needs an “assault rifle”! What are you so afraid of? What are you planning?”

Have any of you out there ever heard any of those?

Additionally, we’re again barraged with the somber declarations from police spokesmen: “We’re out gunned!”

This is simply not true. In fact it is a blatant lie. Virtually every major municipality has access to federally funded full auto firearms. ...

David Codrea asks: Who's spreading the lies in Pittsburgh shooter story?:

An insidious new meme is being propagated following the Pittsburgh slayings--that rhetoric from conservatives, gun rights activists, the "right wing"-- is responsible for Richard Poplawski's alleged fear that Obama was going to take away guns. The first thing we need acknowledge is this is but one more case of the media rushing to judgment before the facts are in. There's a whole lotta speculation going on.

As we've noted before, Obama's own words taken from the official White House website reveal his goal of banning an entire class of semiautomatic firearms. His attorney general has revived the call. And he's based a large part of his rationale on a demonstrable lie.

We're not allowed to point that out? And reporting on their own words is now verboten?

An important component of the meme is that conservative/libertarian speech is hate speech. In the Orwellian Newspeak off the political left, the words of the framers of the Constitution are treasonous.

It's called projection. Shall we explore the sentiments coming from those who make no secret that they hate gun owners and believe in government monopoly of power? What do popular lefties have to say? ...

MSNBC (AP story) takes aim at body armor:

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. - In shootings around the nation, police often find the gunman is wearing a bulletproof vest — and while it's an issue that has recently jumped into the spotlight, it's hardly a new problem for law enforcement.
...
"We still train our officers that if they have to use their weapon, to fire on two kill zones — two bullets fired at the chest, a third at the head, in case the person is wearing a vest," said Grebert, a veteran law enforcement officer who retired in 2003 after 11 years as police chief in the Albany suburb of Colonie.
...
More companies are making body armor, and there are now more places to buy it, law enforcement officials say.

The easier-than-ever availability of body armor has drawn renewed focus following the recent mass shootings in Binghamton, N.Y., and Pittsburgh.

Police said 41-year-old Jiverly Wong was wearing a bulletproof vest when he burst into the American Civic Association in Binghamton on Friday morning and killed 13 people before taking his own life.

Richard Poplawski, 23, was wearing one when he killed three Pittsburgh police officers who were responding to a domestic disturbance call Saturday.
...
Besides the Internet, buyers can also find body armor at hunting stores, gun shops, surplus military supply stores, and even occasionally at yard and garage sales.

Federal law precludes anyone convicted of a violent felony from possessing body armor. New York and several other states also have made it a felony for someone to wear body armor while committing a violent crime or using a weapon, Grebert said.

Companies that sell body armor do not need any special licenses, nor are they required to run background checks. The onus is on the buyer to be truthful about his past, said Nick Taylor, manager of BulletProofME, an Austin, Texas-based company. ...

Comment: If you don't already have body armor, perhaps you should consider acquiring some, before it's banned for "ordinary" folks.


[Indiana] Gun, ammo sales booming:

There used to be a time when buying ammunition at Beber’s Shot and Sinker in Auburn was no problem – there were rounds aplenty in stock.

There also was a time when the gun racks in the store on Ensley Avenue were stocked full with 100, maybe 125, firearms for sale.

Not anymore.

Now, co-owner Donald Beber said, the shop has about 25 or 30 guns for sale. People who used to walk in and trade or sell their firearms no longer come around for fear the government is about to take their guns away, according to Beber.

And ammunition? Forget about it.

“A lot of ammunition we can’t get anymore because it’s all bought up,” Beber said. “Ammunition being made is all sold out to the end of the year. That’s what some of the distributors are telling us.”
...
Whatever the reasons, it’s not just gun aficionados who are stocking up or hoarding ammo and firearms. The trend is crossing socioeconomic and gender lines, according to gun shop owners.

“Friday nights, our parking lot used to be full of Chevy pickups,” said Mark D. vanBurk, president of H&H Firearms Inc. in Fort Wayne. “Now, we’ll see Lexuses and Mercedes-Benzes. Everybody is coming in.” ...

[Texas] Will New York shooting affect Texas campus carry bill?:

San Marcos — When police in Binghamton, N.Y. went looking for the gunman who killed 13 people before committing suicide on Friday, the Associated Press reported they led out “a number of men in plastic handcuffs” while they sorted out who was who.

Had there been someone in that immigrant community center licensed to carry a concealed handgun who had drawn their weapon and ethnically resembled the shooter, police might have shot him by mistake.

Tragic as it is, the New York case may serve to support the point some in local law enforcement have made regarding Sen. Jeff Wentworth’s (R-San Antonio) legislation that would allow those with concealed handgun licenses to carry their weapons on the campuses of Texas colleges and universities.

Texas State Police Captain Paul Chapa acknowledges that such a shooting could happen here, but if it does and police were to encounter a student with a drawn but legal weapon, “We’re not going to ask where the concealed handgun permit is, we’re going to shoot.”

Chapa, like the rest of the university police force, has undergone “active shooter” training at the San Marcos-based Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT).

“You go in and isolate the threat. If you go in and find someone with a gun and the call is for a man with a gun, that’s your approach,” he said.
...
Wentworth’s bill, and companion legislation in the House of Representatives, “looks like it’s getting a lot of support,” Chapa said. “All we can do is kind of prepare for it. Our focus is not to deny the right of anyone to carry a weapon, he said, adding the mission of university police is “to provide for the safety and security of the communities we have sworn to protect.” ...

Comment: While friendly fire is indeed a concern in the active shooter situation, history -- from Columbine, Virginia Tech, North Illinois University, and including the recent Binghamton, NY shooting -- shows us that the cops, in every one of these cases, didn't get there in time to stop the shooter.


[Arkansas] Senate approves watered down permit privacy bill:

The Arkansas Senate has approved a bill that would allow the state to release the names and ZIP codes of residents licensed to carry concealed handguns.
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Senators voted 34-0 Monday to pass the bill by Rep. Randy Stewart of Kirby. That comes after the bill was amended from an original proposal that would have made the entire list of concealed-carry permits secret.

The measure will return to the House for lawmakers to consider the changes. ...

Comment: The bill is better than no bill, I guess. Let's see whether the House concurs with the changes, and the governor signs any resulting legislation. Perhaps the good folks in Arkansas can pass a better version in the future; I'm sure we can count on the anti-gun mainstream media to act irresponsibly again.

Happy Birthday, America!

Wishing you a happy 232nd birthday, old girl!

You're still the brightest, most beautiful belle at the liberty ball. And we love you.