Bear Bussjaeger

The state Supreme Court just tossed Cook County’s “violence tax” (which did not actually direct the money “to any fund or program specifically related to curbing the cost of gun violence on firearms and ammunition”).

While the taxes do not directly burden a law-abiding citizen’s right to use a firearm for self-defense, they do directly burden a law-abiding citizen’s right to acquire a firearm and the necessary ammunition for self-defense.

That’s a no-brainer, obviously. But I’m astonished that they were honest enough to admit it.

Seen on Twitter; Army Basic trainees being led in an MLK “cadence.”

A lot of people misunderstand military basic training; some never figure it out. Even as a 19yo punk going through Air Force Basic, I got some of it, more I figured out after the fact.

Basic attempts to do several things. Some of the more… basic include:

• Shocking recruits out of lackadaisical civilian attitudes, and getting them toreflexively follow the instructions of those with more experience or information. That might save your life in combat.
• Inculcating the habit of attention to detail, not because it much matters if your socks are folded “right” or your uniform gig line is straight, but because attention to detail becomes really important when working with high voltage, high power weapons, or high explosives.
• Learn teamwork, because you need to know that your fellows have your back, and they need to know the same of you; even if you don’t particularly like each other.

There’s so much more. If you want in-depth analysis of the subject, read almost anything by John Ringo. (If we wanted a real military, selected Ringo works should be required reading. Very selected, I admit.)

Part of basic training is the instructors leading by example. The instructors wear perfect uniforms to show that it can be done, and that yes, the rules apply to them, too. Marching, ditto. All of it.

Look at that idiot leading the recruits on that march. They are all masked. Pointlessly, being outside and spaced out, and cloth masks like that being useless. But Sergeant (I can’t actually make out the rank) Super-Spreader? No mask, no example but a bad one.

I guess ChinCOVID spreads selectively by rank. NCOs can’t get it; as a former TSgt, that’s nice to know.

What is seen in that short clip is bad, really bad. Everything else implied by what’s seen is so very much worse. “Fucked” doesn’t even come close to expressing how screwed up it is.

…by fucking it up even more.

Report: White House Weighs Deploying National Guard to Confront Supply Chain Crisis While Pete Buttigieg Is MIA
As part of the review, White House officials have studied what kinds of driver’s licenses are held by National Guard members and if they would be sufficient to deploy them as truckers without hurting their ability to fulfill their existing responsibilities to the guard, the people said.

So these morons — accustomed to demanding the NatGuard pull their chestnuts (emphasis on “nuts”) out of the fire — want to find who has a CDL, and suddenly pull them off their routes — WTF do they think people with CDLs are doing now? — to work other routes. It’ll be interesting to see what, or rather whose, cargo gets prioritized; big campaign donors, I expect.

We’ve seen this in the medical field, too. As hospital staffing craters, idiot governors call up NG medical personnel to work selected locations, ignoring the fact that medical personnel were probably already working other locations for their real jobs.

Another point to consider: What are these proposed Guard truckers supposed to be driving? Will they call up independent owner/operators and require them to bring their own rigs? Would they nationalize the fleets of trucking companies?

Video here. Pseudo-vax theme.

Naturally the snowflake recording it has no sense of humor.

Yesterday, I mentioned the Chinese hypersonic missile test. This afternoon, I see that the Chinese are claiming it was just a spacecraft, not a missile.

I figure a hypersonic reentry vehicle is a hypersonic reentry vehicle, no matter what payload you decide to put on it.

You might recall that Project Mercury used Redstone and Atlas ballistic missiles for boosters. Gemini used the Titan III ICBM. And the Air Force has it’s own vehicle that can reach orbit, then reenter and land; the X-37B.

Missile? Spacecraft? If it lands, it’s a spacecraft. If it hits, it’s a missile. I touched upon that nebulous difference in my novel Net Assets, as one reason the dot-gov really wants to control launch capability (which I wish the idiots trying to build a “space port” near the nuke sub base would consider).