Bear Bussjaeger – Page 133 – 2A advocate, writer, firearms policy & law analyst, general observer of pre-apocalyptic American life.

WTF, Gropin’ Joe?

See anything odd about this?

Look closer.

That sure looks to me like his hands are superimposed in front of those mikes.

Update: Here’s a video clip of it. Tell me that isn’t green screened.

Green screened appearances now? Photoshop?

Update 2: Heh. I think I’ll start using “HoloJoe.”

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I’d like a hot pastrami and cheese

…with a side of Glocks.

I’m sure he was running background checks.

Damned Hi-Cap Revolvers

The weapon of choice of gangbangers everywhere.

Rumor has it Congresscritter Carolyn B. Maloney [D-NY] is already drafting a bill to ban them.

Reporters Beware: First Amendment Implications of the AutoKeyCard Debacle

I hope you have heard about the arrest of Kristopher Ervin for selling what the ATF alleges are “lightning links,” machinegun conversion devices for AR-pattern firearms.

Let’s run down the specifics of the claim.

A “lightning link” of the sort the ATF alleges that Ervin possessed and sold is an assembly of two pieces of metal. Are the two separate pieces of material a lightning link if they aren’t assembled?

What if you have a picture of a lightning link etched on metal (the AutoKeyCard)? It not only isn’t assembled, it isn’t even two pieces of metal shaped for assembly? It’s a… template. Is the picture on metal a lightning link? The ATF says it is.

Another step back. What if you have a picture of a lightning link on paper? A template. Is that a lightning link? After all, you could trace the image onto metal, cut out the pieces, and assemble a lightning link.

But what if you have a computer image — JPEG, PNG, whatever — of a lightning link? You could print that out, and make a lightning as above. Are you in possession of an unregistered machinegun part yet? You think not?

Do a web search on “Lasnik Defense Distributed.” The Dishonorable Lasnik blocked the release of computer files — templates — because they could be used to make gun parts.

Templates are just instructions. But instructions can be verbal. What if you have this — on paper, on your computer

Take a piece of sheet metal 2.163 inches long, by .650 inches wide. Cut a slot .370 inches wide, centered .043 inched from one end. Starting at that end, cut a .080 inch wide strip and 1.338 inches long from one side. Next […]

I’ll stop there lest I generate instructions, a verbal template, that the ATF will mistake for a lightning link.

At most, Ervin’s AutoKeyCard is handy instructions for how to make a lightning link. The ATF says that’s close enough for government work.

The AutoKeyCard isn’t even complete instructions. Note that dimensional data is left out completely. It’s just enough that you can do it, without really knowing how.

One reporter I communicated with agreed with the ATF, that the picture — the template, the instructions — is the thing. Even incomplete.

Now, let’s say you don’t have those instructions on file, but you read a PDF about lightning links once…

…and you remember enough to make one. At what point in the process from concept to working material object is the lightning link real? We know the ATF claims it’s somewhere before there’s a working object.

That aforementioned reporter is a fool. He doesn’t know enough about law and judicial precedent to see the broader implications of the ATF’s argument that instructions are close enough.

Knowing how to commit a crime — making an unregistered machinegun part — is the crime: having an unregistered machinegun part.

Pretend you’re a reporter, making a living on your First Amendment free speech rights to tell people what’s happening in their community. Suppose there has been a series of homicides, and you want to warn people about the danger. Maybe you read the police reports and wrote this:

Police say the killer hides in the shadows of dark alleys. Witness statements say the suspect wears dark clothes, possibly to be less easily seen. He waits for a lone individual and , per surveillance video, strikes silently from behind, slashing the victim’s throat. Forensic psychologist Dr. Jane Smith says the suspect chooses smaller, weaker targets, usually women, because they are more helpless.

Police say that people, especially women, should avoid dark spaces at night, and always travel in pairs or groups. Be aware of your surroundings at all times.

Good job! You told the people to be cautious, why they should cautious, and what to watch out for. Give that guy a Pulitzer!

The problem is, by ATF standards, you described how a crime is committed. You gave other wannabe serial killers instructions, a how-to. A template for murder. According to the ATF and that ignorantly supportive reporter, you committed murder. The Concept, the instructions are the thing.

Ervin provided instructions on how to make an unregistered machinegun part.

Our hypothetical reporter gave instructions on how to commit a murder right down to where to hunt, what to wear, selection of silent weapon, and how to pick victims.

If the same standards applied to the Second Amendment were applied to the First, a lot of reporters would be on death row.

But she’s the good kind of corrupt racist

Some MSNBC host wants to rename the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover building, because he was a corrupt racist (and from my reading, I’d guess he was both, even by the “cultural norms” of his own times). The ditz wants to name it for…

Stacey Abrams; also a corrupt racist. But apparently not by modern Democrat cultural norms.

Pro-Tip: “Anti-Government”

When the government declares that it’s anti-government to support and defend the Constitution, you no longer have a constitutional republican form of government.

For those who weren’t paying attention, the Republic failed the first time we let a judge invent levels of scrutiny never mentioned in the Constitution, to rationalize violating enumerated rights because the government claims to have a “good reason.”

Saw this and got a chuckle

Over at Gateway Pundit…

Biden Takes Swipe at Sarah Palin in His Prepared Remarks By Repeating Lie That She Could See Russia From Her House
Sarah Palin told the liberal media that it is possible to see Russia from the outer Alaskan Islands. The media then used this to smear the popular governor. And now Joe Biden is pretending Sarah Palin herself was looking at Russia from Alaska — something she never said.

And this nasty swipe was written into his prepared remarks because Joe Biden does not have the mental capacity to come up with this snarky lie by himself.

The lie that Biden was referring to was instigated in a skit at far-left Saturday Night Live in 2008:

That reminded me of something related. I don’t recall who it was, and I think it was at my long-retired bussjaeger.org site. But someone was insisting that Palin had actually said she could see Russia from her house. As “proof,” that person gave a link to a clip of the SNL skit.

After that, I started recognizing some of the Palin criticism as being based on Tina Fey’s impressions. These idiots apparently thought that was the real Palin, and the clips they found were from news reports. And they vote.

Granted, Fey did a decent Palin impression (judging by brief clips I’ve seen; I stopped watching SNL decades ago), but… seriously?

Markle for President

I’ve tried to avoid “Harry and Meghan” reports… because I just don’t care. But this headline was perfect clickbait.

Meghan Markle reportedly considering a run for US president
Sources in Britain’s Labor party claimed that Meghan Markle will be using the publicity surrounding her interview with Oprah to launch a political career with aspirations for the White House.

According to the Daily Mail a senior Labor figure, who is a veteran of the Blair administration and has ties to DC, claimed that Markle was working with members of the Democrat party to start a campaign and fundraising to become a future US president.

Go for it, honey. Next Prez cycle. That just might be enough to guarantee a Demwit loss, even with HR 1 institutionalized Dem election fraud.

“Volunteers” Redux

Back in January, I had serious doubts that the Pentagon could find 7,000 volunteers for the DC Occupation Force. And just a days later, they proved it when they had to call up 500 nonvolunteers.

Turns out it’s even better.

New Memo Shows National Guard Being Forced to Stay at U.S. Capitol, Despite a Lack of Resources
“Efforts to date have not secured enough volunteers among supporting states to meet the USCP request of 2,280 Soldiers, no Option B of 1000 soldiers,” the memo, written by Chief of the National Guard Bureau General Daniel Hokanson, states.

They can’t get 2,280 volunteers. From fifty states.

They can’t get 1,000 suckers for a “Plan B.”

Gee, I wonder why? Volunteer to sleep in a parking garage in the nation’s Capitol, eating either contaminated food or MREs (hell of a choice; though MREs have improved since the dessicated pork puck days)? Do that knowing that despite your security clearances, you’ll still be subjected to a lefty purity check; because, by default, the Dems don’t trust or respect you?

Shit, the congresscritters are lucky the Guardsmen haven’t just padlocked the gates and gone home.

“SSS Rentals”

What with the way things are going, I just had a thought about a possible moneymaker. I think I’ll use my stimulus check to buy a small backhoe to rent out on as-needed basis.

Then again, around here we already have plenty of waterways and ‘gators.