This is our rule for commenting. For the most part our readers have followed this rule very well. There are very few times when we’ve had to remove a comment or worse still, ban a commenter.

Shortly we are going to a membership model. Commenting is a membership feature.

If you are a member, you will be able to comment. The “Don’t be a dick rule” will still be in effect.

So there are somethings that are obviously dick moves:

• Doxing somebody.
• Threatening somebody
• Verbally attacking somebody
• Implicitly or explicitly suggesting that we, as a group, will act in violence

For those that don’t know, doxing is the act of giving out contact information on somebody. This does not mean public contact points for politicians or other public people. I.e. it is ok to give the phone number for the Senate office of a Senator. It is not ok to give the private cell number or home number of that same Senator. Don’t be a dick.

It doesn’t matter if you hate that person, don’t make threats. Even jokingly. “I’m going to X such and such” is a dick move. It doesn’t really matter what “X” is. Don’t make threats.

We don’t all march to the same drummer. That is one of the wonderful things about this community. That means that we have disagreements. When we are disagreeing it is ok to attack an opinion, it is not ok to attack the person. “If you think that water is wet you are an idiot” is a dick move. Don’t do it.

If the only way you can counter an argument is by calling the person making the argument names, you’ve lost the argument. Stop now, don’t be a dick.

Implicitly or explicitly suggesting that we, as a group will act in violence is making a statement that can be read as a threat. “Well she’s going to be room temperature soon.”, “They better make sure their fire insurance is up-to-date”. The first isn’t a direct threat, it is a statement that somebody is going to kill her. The second isn’t a direct threat, it is a statement that somebody is going to burn something down.” Implying that we, as a group, are going to react to somebody’s past action is a dick move. Don’t do it.

The quote is: If we were as violent as the left thinks we are, there wouldn’t be any left.

When somebody within our community, or somebody posing as being within our community makes threats of violence it just looks bad. Don’t be a dick. Don’t do it.

These are examples. They are not a list of “don’t do this.” There is only one rule “Don’t be a dick”. We are not going to play wack-a-mole with somebody playing rules games. We don’t promise a warning. If someone violates the rule, admin will do what they feel is appropriate.

This post is a direct result of one commenter implicitly suggesting that we, as a group, were going to commit arson and murder. They were given warning for the first. This serves as their second warning. They will be banned if they violate the commenting rule again.

-Signed: GFZ Admins

Via the Holland Sentinel: Letters to the Editor: How can GOP candidates ask for our support when they don’t accept truth?

We all live in our bubbles. Information bubbles where we hear what we expect to hear and anything outside of our expectations can be ignored.

My Lady does Tarot readings and she has multiple decks she uses. She’s pretty good at it. But she says I’m better at it than she is, even though I’ve never done a Tarot reading. What she does is what is called a “cold reading”. She says something and looks for a response in the person she is reading for. Those subtle body hints are then used to create a more and more accurate telling of what the person is looking to hear.

In the end the person that got the reading walks away, amazed at how accurate the reading was. They then look forward to the predictions coming true. That prediction that good fortunate will come her way takes six months but when it does, she looks back in amazement that my Lady was able to predict the good fortune.

This works because the predictions that don’t come true are forgotten. The one that did come true is remembered.

When we live in our bubbles we lose sight of what is outside and can easily ignore it.

For the conservative side our bubble isn’t very tight. There are just too many places where we are forced to see the opinions of others. It is forced on us at every step.

We KNOW that there are huge numbers of people that are sure that Trump tried to over throw the 2020 election. We can’t escape it. We know that there are large numbers of people that believe that there was no cheating during the 2020 election. There is no belief we hold that we aren’t aware that there are all those on the other side that believe differently.

Even if all we did was read GFZ and watched Fox News we would still be exposed to other opinions and points of view.

Those on the left can exist in a bubble that is so strong that they have never had to even hear our opinions. If they have, they have heard the straw man version. The version where their sources tell them what our sources said, did or believe. Without ever given the actual words or actions.

At the top of this article is the link to this persons actual words. You can go read them for yourself. You don’t have to trust me.

I inquired as to what this was trying to convey, and he said that due to the Biden Administration’s irresponsible spending we were currently experiencing sky-high gas prices. I patiently explained to him that — no, the current administration, or any administration, is not responsible for gas prices. Oil is an international commodity, and is susceptible to the vagaries of the global economy.

I am growing impatient with this cheap, disingenuous and wrong-headed spin Republicans are using to criticize the Biden Administration. This is a lazy way to get Republican voters to the polls, and it’s actually disrespectful to the electorate for assuming that the voters are dumb enough to fall for this. The price of gas has very, very little to do with any administration.

This is a person speaking from inside their bubble. I don’t know Annie Sterken of Holland, MI. I can make some good guesses. I am willing to bet that three years ago when the Democrats were screaming about high gas prices and blaming Trump, she was blaming Trump.

She goes on to tell use that the price of gas is driven by the price of crude oil and that the administration doesn’t have control over the price of crude oil. That it is world wide pricing and as such the current administration can’t really effect it.

She blames inflation on all sorts of things, none of which has anything to do with what the current administration has done.

This is the bubble that the left lives in. It is a bubble so strong that they can hold four conflicting opinions at the same time and not see anything wrong with any of the four. They can do this because they will take each of those four opinions and only look at it in isolation. With the very next opinion, they will totally ignore what they said just minutes before.

The recent Scott Adam’s meme shows exactly this: “According to CNN, America is the kind of country in which the citizens will bring loaded firearms to any sort of occasion except for attempted overthrows of their own government.”

Annie goes on to say “We are now experiencing a very strong economic recovery, and economic growth also has a strong impact on oil consumption.”

She’s correct about economic growth having a strong impact on oil consumption, but we aren’t in a strong economic recovery. Article after article in all media talks about how inflation is here to stay and that it will get worse. The tea leaves certainly indicate that there are going to be food shortages soon.

The problem is that you can’t reach people that live in this sort of bubble. Any indicator or fact you use to show the administration’s policies are causing economic hardship and inflation will be met with denial and blame shifting. It doesn’t matter what opinion they have, no fact counter to their opinion makes it through the filter of their bubble. You can see the same thing from Senator Warren. Every bit of inflation is caused by greedy corporations and the only fix is for her to have more control over those corporations.

Do your best to talk to people. Remember they live in a bubble and they think you are the one with no outside the bubble view. There is a short video from Last Man Standing that fits this completely. Ryan is helping Eve(?) study for a debate. He has to present both sides of an opinion. For the liberal side he does a good job, as he is a liberal. When it came time to represent the conservative side, he put forth a one line straw man.

In the show, Ryan, much like Annie, had no way of seeing the conservative point of view in any way while knowing they completely understood conservatives.

The 1934 Supreme Court case of Miller challenged the NFA on constitutional grounds. There was nobody representing Miller’s side and the government lied, stating that there was no military use for a shotgun, much less a short barreled shotgun and since the second amendment was about a well regulated militia, no military purpose meant that the short barreled shotgun was not protected by the second amendment.

And the court so ruled. Under Miller, any “military style” or “military weapon” is a protected arm under the second amendment.

Unfortunately, the lower courts took one part of the opinion and used it to make the second amendment about collective rights. The reason we didn’t have another supreme court case until Heller was because nobody was ever given any standing to file a case.

“Banning modern sporting rifles is against the plan language of the second amendment!” “The second amendment is so that the state can have a militia. “Since there is an exception for national guard, military and law enforcement the states right is not infringed and since you are not the militia you have no standing.”

The amazing thing about Heller isn’t that we got the win, it was that the case made it to the supreme court at all.

Heller acknowledge that the second amendment was an individual right.

Since Heller the gun infringers have been scrambling to find ways around the second amendment. The current method is to use the tiered scrutiny methodology. With this, the lower courts have been able to say “Well yes, this is an infringement but it is actually constitutional because the government says they have a compelling reason for the infringement.”

Which takes us to today. We are waiting for the Supreme Court to issue its opinion on New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc v. Kevin P. Bruen as Superintendent of New York State Police.

We are expecting an opinion at any time now. It is likely that Justice Thomas will be writing the opinion. This comes from court watchers that count the number of opinions each justice writes per term. Justice Thomas hasn’t written one yet so he is likely to be the primary author.

If the opinion is not very limited in scope then it is likely to have a wide ranging effect on many court rulings and current gun rights infringements. It could easily strike down all “may issue” licensing laws. It could mark make FOID requirements unconstitutional. I pray that we get a great opinion from the court.

It looks like the gun infringers are also reading the same tea leaves the same way. The second amendment might get a huge win.

That means that they infringers need some other way to stop citizens from owning firearms.

We know the games they play and for the most part it comes down to making firearm ownership or shooting too expensive for the common man.

• A 1000% tax on all evil firearms
• A 100% tax on all ammunition.
• Require special and expensive insurance of all firearm owners
• Require expensive storage requirements
• Require registrations

All of these exist to make it more expensive to own or use a firearm. We’ve all heard of the limited number of rounds per time period. I’m sorry but 50 rounds per month isn’t enough for a single range day. I expect to put at least 100 rounds down range everytime I visit the range.

I once lived in a state where I was required to keep my firearms in one location in my home, unloaded and locked and the ammunition in another location in my home, also locked. And that state defined a loaded magazine as a loaded firearm.

In order to make a firearm ready as the animals are breaking in you would have to unlock the firearm, take it to the ammunition storage area, unlock the ammunition, load a magazine and then load and make ready. Oh, I think they also considered stripper clips with cartridges in them to be “loaded firearms”

There are no silencers from the 1930s and 1940s because nobody was going to pay a $200 tax just to have a muffler.

In the end they will use whatever tricks and cheats they need to continue to infringe. We are making progress. We are winning. But sometimes it is so painful.

Via WPRI: ‘It’s devastating’: RI gun dealer reacts to high-capacity magazine ban

Jeff Goyette was in the process of opening a gun store in Portsmouth RI when the legislature passed three gun infringement bills. One raises the age to legally purchase a firearm from 18 to 21. The second was to ban the open carry of a loaded rifle or shotgun in public (No, this doesn’t mean while hunting). The third, a standard capacity magazine ban, was stopped in committee.

The bill was then pulled from committee to the floor where it passed. It is expected that the Governor will sign the bill.

But for Jeff, all of that just means he is likely going to lose his business.

Goyette is in the process of opening a new retail store in Portsmouth.

“I’ve got my life invested in this shop right now, and I haven’t even finished it,” he said.

Now, the ban on high-capacity magazines has stopped him in his tracks.

“This is hurting the law-abiding citizens, and it’s killing the dealers in this state,” Goyette said.

Via HH475 in the comments to The AR-15 has Ruined, RUINED I Tell You, America

I own a couple of AR style weapons. The author gets one thing right, though he doesn’t say it outright. The “problem” with ARs is not their lethality, their ammo, their rate of fire, the size of their magazines, etc. The problem with the AR is that owning it is a political statement. There is no real task that an AR is “best” at, really. For hunting, I prefer a .308 or .30-30. For plinking and varmints, I prefer my M1 carbine or a .22. For self-defense, I own shotguns and pistols. Oh, sure, there are plenty of folk who like to tweak their ARs with fancy addons, etc. and that’s a fine hobby. But most people don’t, in my experience. It’s a convenient weapon that isn’t all that good at any one thing, but isn’t all that bad at any one thing..

But really, I own ARs to piss gun grabbers off, because they are *symbolic* of gun rights. Gun grabbers hate ARs because they are symbols of gun ownership for the sake of gun ownership. I own ARs *because I can* and because it pisses people like Ryan Busse off. No more, no less. And it drives them crazy not because it’s such a horrible weapon, but because it’s the gun that says “screw you” to gun grabbers. It’s unapologetic gun ownership without the “excuse” of hunting, home defense, etc. And that kind of liberty enrages them.

I agree with HH475, owning an AR-15 is a political statement. There are few other firearms that attract as much hate as the AR-15 platform.

We fight the argument with descriptions of what an AR-15 is or is not. How it uses a wimpy round. It is only semi-auto. It is or is not this or that. And we lose because it is an emotional argument that we can’t win with facts.

As a political statement, it is incredibly powerful.

I will give you one place where the AR-15 platform does something almost none of my other firearms do. It gives my wife a platform she can use well. She doesn’t have the hand strength to cycle any semi-auto pistol outside of the .22. She would be able to handle the loading of any of the revolvers but she just doesn’t have the wrist strength to hold one up and no speed on reloading.

On the other hand, she can slap a magazine into the AR, drop the bolt or pull the charging handle with no problems.

The day she shot her AR-15 for the first time just caused her to light up. After spending 10 minutes trying to get a group tighter than 6 or 7 inches with the .22 pistol she picked up the AR and put 10 rounds in a 2 inch group. Yes, it was close. Pistol close. I don’t give a damn. It is the first time she looked at me and said “I can do this”

She now has the ability to defend herself and her family.

Via CNN: Man who carried Confederate flag in US Capitol and son found guilty of felonies

Stop staring at those gas prices!!! Look over here!!! January 6th!!! No, stop looking at your grocery budget! JANUARY 6th!

A man and his son found GUILTY of felonies!!! No, don’t look at your savings account, January 6th I tell you!!!

The man who was captured parading through the US Capitol with a large Confederate flag during the January 6, 2021 riot, was – along with his son – found guilty by a federal judge on Wednesday of obstructing an official proceeding, a felony.

That’s right folks, FELONIES!

What, only one per person? Still they’re felonies!

And they had a large Confederate flag! Felonies! Stop looking at your paycheck, it doesn’t really matter if you are deciding on food for you or food for your car. January 6th!

What did they actually pled guilty of, you might ask? They went into the building and wondered around for a bit, they got “close” to the Senate chambers. But because the Senate fled they were accused and pled guilty of obstructing an official proceeding. Were they actually guilty of this felony or were they beat down from spending a year plus in jail?

According to Wikipedia there have only been a few cases of obstructing an official proceeding and they were things like a crime family obstructing a grand jury investigation, a teacher that tipped off some drug dealers they were under investigation.

This is the sort of charge that gets tacked on to a long list of crimes.

Mr Smith, you have been found guilty of four counts of intentional homicide, three counts of forceful rape, 17 counts assault with a deadly weapon and one count of cruelty to animals.

Yep, horrible that he kicked that dog on his way to rape and murder.

When you see something that fits the narrative to closely, look again. Read what is actually said. Watch what actually took place. This is true for both sides of the narrative.

The narrative right now is that Trump supporters, and by implication all of us, tried to topple the US Government. Anything that supports that narrative will get front page coverage.

At the same time we have to be careful of stories that support our narrative. Just why were they in this location after dark? Animal Attacks.. or How to truly stop crime in Detroit. why was this person attacked? Why did he leave his home?

Is there more to the story?

A number of years ago I got to participate in a mass shooting. About a dozen friends went up to some property we owned with a private range. Range backstop was a big hill.

We placed targets out to about 200 yards. But being the lazy ass people that we were, some of the targets were just stapled to trees.

We sent thousands of rounds down range that day.

And while you all might think that a Tannerite booms are impressive…

We got to watch a 100+ ft tree come down. We’d cut it down with gun fire.

FBI: A “mass shooting” is any incident in which at least four people are murdered with a gun.

Unclear if the exclude gang violence. I think they use to.

Gun Violence Archive (GVA): Four or more people struck with bullets. Nobody needs to die for it to be a mass shooting.

Mass Shooting Tracker: Four or more people hit by bullets.

Note that some of these include the shooter themselves being shot, others don’t.

Some include gang violence others don’t.

The reason we can have more “mass shootings” than there are days in the year is because of the twisted definitions.

When Karen hears “Mass Shooting Incident” she sees dozens of bodies laying on the ground, blood around. When she hears “Four Children Killed in Mass Shooting” She sees the images from Sandy Hook of kindergarteners laying in pools of their own blood.

The reality is that by alarmest standards a “mass shooting” can be two gangs flinging bullets at each other which ends up with 2 on each side getting a stitch or two. Four dead might mean to 17 year old animals dead in a drug deal gone bad.

A “school shooting” can be anything from Sandy Hook (real school shooting) to some animal shot in a drug deal in the parking lot of an administration building used to store buses, after dark.

If it bleeds it leads, if it doesn’t bleed, get more ketchup.

Vai the Atlantic: The Rifle That Ruined America

Written by Ryan Busse who is a senior policy adviser to the gun-control advocacy group Giffards.

Amazingly enough that’s what they tell you about the author. They correctly describe Giffards.

According to Ryan, 20 years ago nobody bought AR-15 style weapons. (I should check mine, I’m sure it was made after 1986 and prior to 1999) And only a few companies were making AR-15 platforms. (Maybe because the government was standing on the scales of economics)

And he was out there working hard to keep evil AR-15s out of the gun culture.

Up until about 2006, only a handful of companies were making AR-15s. They were outliers, producing rifles mainly for law enforcement and the military, and in the domestic commercial market AR-15s accounted for just a fraction of total gun sales, which averaged from 6 million to 8 million guns a year. The social norms that governed gun ownership and the firearms industry were clear: Assault rifles and tactical gear were a creepy, fringe interest that had no place in a complex democratic society.

Got that, tactical gear was creepy. If you had to dress like a FUDD to be able to fit in with gun culture.

And even though the intent was to ban all AR-15s, it never really happened, so you can ignore the AWB of 1994. Which implies you can ignore the fact that there was no change in crime statistics that can be directly tied to the 1994 AWB.

Ryan is proud that he fought to keep tactical equipment out of the marketplace, because tactical equipment is dangerous.

I was looking at a Winchester ’94 with saddle ring. That saddle ring was “tactical” for its time. The sling points on my hundred year old (plus) rifles were tactical. The reproduction ammo pouches were tactical. But for Ryan having a vest that holds spare magazines and an IFAK is just to dangerous.

The thing to note is that this article is well written. Articulate. It sounds calm and reasoned. But it includes biased statements that make it easy to make assumptions. “NRA leadership held closed-door business meetings” The implication is that they were secret meetings. The NRA convention wasn’t canceled after Columbine. Never mind that the convention is also the annual meeting that is required. The NRA decided to be aggressive instead of conciliatory in their messaging and stance.

Remember, when some criminal does criminal things over there, you should surrender over here.

And then we get to the kicker, Firearm manufacturers use irresponsible marketing.

Via The Atlantic: Leave Joe Biden Alone

You need to realize that the author isn’t a Hard Core Democrat. He started as a Republican and worked for moderates and centralist, just like Joe is a Centralist.

The Joe Biden who ran in 2020 appeared wiser, sadder, somewhat deflated, and seemed to be taking on the presidency as a public service and a burden. Time and tragedy had tempered Biden, and I liked him even more than I did in his flashier, Jason Sudeikis–like youth. These days, I think he’s done a pretty good job, especially given the fact that he’s dealing with a pandemic, revelations about an attempted American coup d’état, and an economic slowdown over which he had no control.

See, nothing that Joe has had to deal with is his fault. It was all thrust upon him as he took on the Presidency to serve the public. Joe can’t control gas prices souring up over $5.50/gal (but Trump is responsible for gas being over $2.00/gal). Joe has no control over a pandemic for which there are multiple vaccines, medications and treatments (but trump was responsible for every WuFlu death, even now). Joe’s just there to serve the public, like a kindly grandfather.

You should also know that Joe has single handled managed to keep us out of WWIII. Trump only managed to keep us out of all new conflicts. And the gas prices we are complaining about are all because of the Putin Price Hike.

And those evil republicans plan on impeaching poor old Joe. But it isn’t for cause, it is because Republicans don’t have “a plan to govern the country.”

Don’t give them the link. My BP has spiked enough for the lot of you.

Via ABC News WJLA: Fairfax Co. parents rally before school board meeting over ‘malicious misgendering’ policy

Ok, twisted headline from their site. The Fairfax County School Board is voting on a policy that will label “misgendering” “malicious” which will allow a child to be suspended for bullying.

Thus if Jimmy puts on a skirt, walks into the girls bathroom to take a dump and somebody says “Dude! What do you think you are doing?”

The person doing the questioning is a bully and can be suspended.

If Jimmy, in his dress in class, over hears Jill say to Sally, “He’s a freak” She can get suspended as a bully for the “He’s” but not “a freak”

In this case a number of Fairfax County Parents organized a rally to fight for first amendment rights for their kids and to stop this stupidity.

“This is a violation of our children’s first amendment rights,” said one protesting parent. “We should not be for compelled speech, no one should.”

After a late night debate over the adoption of the district’s latest Student Rights and Responsibilities Handbook which largely focused on the future of cellphones in FCPS classrooms, the board decided to pass the amendments with a number of follow-on options.