I’ll admit up front: I am a former Rangemaster for my major law enforcement department (at one point, over 2,000 officers until budgetary layoffs this and last year) in California, seven years ago. I am not a huge “gun guy” per se — it is not the end-all and be-all of my life — but I am sufficiently knowledgeable and facile that a favored Captain specifically solicited me to take over the Rangemaster position in a particularly critical point in our training history. My job was to pointedly eliminate “difficult” personnel and streamline training. In other words, fire specific people and ensure we were up to POST training mandates. I therefore cleaned up our image, our history, our ammo bunker, destroyed illegal weapons, ensured we were compliant with all laws, and retained every “targeted” employee because, for me, they worked.
President Obama poses a real and present danger to the Second Amendment, and he’s working to pack the Supreme Court with justices who will undermine Americans’ gun rights.
Mr. Obama didn’t fess up to this radical agenda when running for the highest office in the land. “I have said consistently that I believe that the Second Amendment is an individual right, and that was the essential decision that the Supreme Court came down on,” Mr. Obama told Fox News in June 2008. Despite the campaign rhetoric, Mr. Obama is appointing judges who strongly oppose that position. The most recent pick, Elena Kagan, ran much of President Clinton’s war on guns from 1995 to 1999.
When Ms. Kagan served as Mr. Clinton’s deputy domestic policy adviser, she was a feverish proponent of gun control. From gunlock mandates to gun-show regulations, she was instrumental in pushing anti-gun policies, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Every court nomination counts. Two years ago, the Supreme Court barely mustered a narrow 5-4 majority to strike down the extreme District of Columbia gun ban. Should Justice Anthony Kennedy or one of the four more conservative justices retire or die while Mr. Obama is in office, the high court likely will undo such narrow victories for the Second Amendment.
While Ms. Kagan was nominated to replace the liberal Justice John Paul Stevens, and thus won’t swing the court in a new direction, her being there will necessitate that gun owners concentrate more than ever on fighting outright gun bans.
Ms. Kagan’s defenders acknowledge her liberal political views but claim that as a judge, the former Harvard Law School dean will somehow manage to separate her judgments from her political opinions.
The hitch is that her legal views correspond with her political views. When Ms. Kagan clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall, she wrote, “I’m not sympathetic” to the claim that “the District of Columbia’s firearms statutes violate [an individual’s] constitutional right to ‘keep and bear Arms.’ “
Done!
Been there, done that, got the scars to prove it, and oh yeah, picked up my 3rd Springfield XD last weekend…
A .45 Tactical and 2 .40 Sub-Compacts… I can blast 40 rounds before I ever have to insert a fresh magazine…
I love hi-cap magazines.. 🙂
Nice Para-Ord 14.45 found its way home with 5 mags… all by accident, I swear!
That FN Browning 1922 in 32 was a buy for the lady of the house who needs something that can fit her hand and be comfortable. When I totted up the extras of the entire kit I realized that the mags and holster were worth more than the gun. Go figure. Worth every penny of it…
Plus a nice lightweight four-tenner for the lady, so she can have an easy to wield home defense unit… plus a plinking 60, as every woman needs at least one rifle.
The startling part is she wanted the purchases… yes things are not looking good out there.
Ya know, I never had any intention of becoming a gun owner myself. This was of course before the narrow victory in the Heller decision.
I am now the proud owner of a Smith & Wesson SW99 .40 and a Taurus 24/7 Pro .9mm (17+1 I might add!!) as well as one of the proud 75,000 excercising their right to carry following passage of Minnesota’s 2003 Citizen Personal Protection Act.
Great advice BZ.
But to that guns/ammo list, be sure to add food, shelter you can defend, water or a water source, and a currency to use as money… Gold/Silver, liquor, etc..
(I’m buying 7.62/39 and I don’t own anything that will fire it, but it may have great value soon.)
Anyone not feeling anxious is just not paying attention to world news.
Guns make me nervous. But yesterday I applied for my lifetime permit in my state. And I told my husband that I want to go to the shooting range. Too much bad stuff happening too close.
Rita: first, thanks for the visit and thanks for taking the time to comment; please return! And I’m glad to see you are taking steps to protect yourself and your family in a completely LEGAL way!
BZ
I’m trying to keep ammo sizing to a minimum. Thus 45 ACP, 32 ACP, 22LR, 12ga and 410… plus 7.62x54R. That’s it, no more expansion on that base until things blow over. On the pistol rounds all have more than one platform so one going out does not leave me bereft of utility.
It is hell trying to figure out what to bring to the range next…
During the long, long campaigning and now the longest 1-1/2 years of my life, I’ve consistently said there is no doubt that Obama will appoint 3 SCOTUS judges, even if he has to have one of them knocked off (off the bench of course – you don’t think I’d mean anything else, do ya?).
BZ, I bet your men were so grateful you were their Sergeant, and those with the gold bars grateful someone would do their job for them.
Great post. I love your essays.
I’ve been on a buying spree for the last 18 months…I still have a few things I’d like to get and as long as AZ and Texas are still accessible I’ll have them…
One thing though, firearms and ammo won’t be all you need. When this biatch and the King slug push this through ALL HELL breaks loose. MANY things will be tough to come by. Survival gear is a must.
I put together an outlook primer on survival and what it means for those wanting to understand it. I take my cue from Burke’s Connections series and then go from there. Mostly it is mode of thought and some pointers, and individuals need to adjust to circumstances. The gear is actually pretty cheap… your life is priceless.