Jim drove his cart over to Bill’s farm. He had a hundred bails of hay stacked in the back. When he got to Bill’s farm Bill’s son unloaded the hay and Bill gave Jim an IOU for 200 pounds of wheat.

Jim thanked Bill and headed off to town. When he got to town he went to the blacksmith to have his mare’s shoes replaced. He gave the IOU from Bill for 200 pounds of wheat to the blacksmith. The blacksmith handed him 3 IOU’s from Bill for 50 pounds each of wheat.

Jim thanked the blacksmith and headed over to the general store. There he picked up a bolt of cloth for his wife a box of 50 rounds of .45 Colt, and 50 pounds of flour. He handed the store clerk to of Bill’s 50 pound IOU’s. The clerk gave him back a 20 pound IOU and a 5 pound IOU.

Jim headed back home.

He had just traded 5000 pounds of hay for new shoes for his mare, cloth for his wife, cartridges for his pistol, flour for his food and he still had 1875 pounds of hay in his pocket.

Money is just a token used to indicate a certain amount of value. The value of that token is set by the trust of the people using that token.

In our example, Bill has promised that he will exchange any of his IOUs for the face value in wheat grain. In this he has set the value.

The blacksmith didn’t need or want hay or grain. He wants a pig to turn into food. He can trade the IOUs he got from Jim to some pig farmer in exchange for a pig. At no time did he have to transfer large bulky goods.

The blacksmith is mostly trading his time for the IOUs. He is selling his labor. The general store is selling convenience and storage in exchange for IOUs

The general store uses some form of barter or trade, including Bill’s IOUs, to purchase things that he doesn’t need in order to store them in his store. Since he has limited shelf space he can’t have everything. He is investing his wealth into his stock. While that stock is sitting on the shelves or warehouse he can’t use it for anything else.

The general store is also trading wealth for transportation. They are paying to have goods transported from where they are available to the store for resale.

If you have ever gone into a hardware store to purchase just a couple of bolts, screws or nuts, you are paying for that storage. The store has thousands of dollars invested in that stock of every type of nut, bolt, washer, and screw that normal people could want.

But what happens if Bill dies and his wife and children just up and go. Are Bill’s IOUs worth anything at that point?

Yes. They are worth exactly what people believe they are worth. If anybody else wants to match the face value in pounds of wheat then those IOUs are stable in value.

Even if nobody is willing to trade a 20# IOU for 20# of wheat, those IOUs still have value. It might be the case that instead of getting 20# of wheat for a 20# IOU you can only get 10# of wheat. Is the IOU worth less?

Maybe not. If you can still get your horse shoed for a 50# IOU and you can still get cartridges, cloth and flour from the general store with Bill’s IOUs, then they still have value.

The difference is that the value of Bill’s IOUs are no longer backed with physical wheat. It is backed by the concept of value assigned by each person that uses those IOUs to exchange wealth.

Here are some of the problems though, if Bill’s IOUs can be faked, counterfeited, then there is the possibility for bad actors to create IOUs without adding value to the system. To many counterfeit IOUs and the value of the IOUs will drop, as will the trust in those IOUs.

It is also possible for Bill to create more IOUs than he has grain to back. As long as everybody believes that the IOUs are backed by actual wheat, this doesn’t matter. As soon as people understand that Bill just creates more IOUs when he wants to buy something they will start to distrust his IOUs. This is inflation.

All money is, is a token to indicate value. That token holds that value as long as people believe in the token and as long as IOUs are not being injected into the economy with no added value. I.e. counterfeiting and printing them.

We’ve started a weekly link dump at the suggestion of some of our readers from last week.

A couple of longish articles went out.

The goal of this blog remains the same, to bring attention to gun related issues, to have a platform for our passions, to talk about things of value to this community.

We are actively seeking more articles from you our members. Send them in and we’ll see if they can be published.

What articles did you see this week that were of particular interest to you?
Do you have any links to stories you’d like us to look at?

In 1337 the “Hundred Years’ War” started. Great armies marched to meet each other in the fields of battle. They fought and 2.3 to 3.3 million men died.

In 1792 the French Revolutionary war started. It lasted 7 years and between 1.2 million and 1.4 million men died in the fields of battle.

In 1803 the Napoleonic wars started. Somewhere between 3.5 million and 7.0 million men died in the fields of battle and in the misery of being on campaign.

Between 1955 and 1975 somewhere between 0.9 million and 3.8 million people died in the Vietnam War. There were around 300 thousand soldiers killed in Vietnam, 58 thousand Americans and 254 thousand South Vietnam.

What was the significant change between the previous wars and Vietnam?

Asymmetrical Warfare.

The civilians and the enemy combatants wore the same clothing. They wore the same footwear. They ate the same food. The man sharing a meal with a soldier might be stalking that same soldier later that night.

During the 20 years of “The Troubles” in Ireland 8 to 10 thousand people were active members of the IRA. By the 1980’s it was believed that there were around 450 active members and 300 support members. Yet this small number of dedicated people were able to keep the British at bay.

This equates to around 9/100,000 at the low point and 10/100,000 at the high point. If there was this level of asymmetric warfare in the US that would be around 30,000 active participants every year. Even with people rotating in and out.

In 2021 there were 38.5 million hunting licenses issued. If we assume 12/100,000 this would be 4632 people with the right equipment in hand to take a deer sized target at 100 to 200 yards. Not to mention all the other firearm owners that don’t hunt but are proficient with their firearms.

So at a low end we would have somewhere around 5000 and at the high end about 50,000 actives in the such warfare in America.

All of these people look just like the people they are living with. We saw what this was like in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition there is a higher probability of members of the resistance existing unseen within the government/military complex.

We look at what people with minimal industrial knowledge were able to accomplish. Their ability to make hand crafted firearms, their ability to create IEDs. All of that knowledge from people that don’t have the same level of education as most of the people that read this blog.

If it comes to conflict it will be asymmetrical. One or two man teams working to harass and torment occupying forces. Supply lines that are long and undefended. Convoys traveling on wide open express ways with good sightines to them from good cover and concealment.

People with the money to buy and train with tactical gear.

As more than one person has stated “I’m not about to trade MY AR-15 for a milspec M-4 or M-16, my rifle is much better than that.”

Fourth-Generation War and Other Myths
Fourth-generation warfare
Fourth Generation Warfare
Military History and Fourth Generation Warfare
WAR OF THE FLEA – A STUDY OF GUERILLA WARFARE – THEORY AND PRACTICE
The Guerrilla and How to Fight Him FMFRP 12-25

A man child decides he is going to stand up to the man and join his comrades in fighting the fascist.  He picks up a soy latte at the last Starbucks in the area and parks his mothers Prius at the meeting point.  When he gets there he high fives his friends and they all pull on their black block costumes.

One of the organizers is going around passing out “press” cards to anybody that says they are willing to film with their cameras.  A number of people have big red cross patches on their bags.

Everybody quiets down when Big Bill starts talking.  He explains that they are going to go and protest outside the courthouse again.  People laugh.  He points to the shield wall people and the people that are suppose to throw things.  He explains that it is everybody’s job to make sure that if they need to run, these guys can just disappear into the block.

In high spirits people move into the vans for the short ride to the courthouse.  It is going to be great!

Four hours later the man child heads back to mom’s house.  He managed to egg a couple of cop cars.  They had almost gotten the fence down in one section.  If they didn’t have a guest lecturer in his women’s study class he’d be there still.

The fat old man walked down the street.  He had a walking stick that he leaned on.  He’d take a have dozen steps and pause to catch his breath.  Every once in a while he’d place his old fashion camera on top of the walking stick and take a picture or two.  As he slowly made his way down the street a couple of cops standing guard watched.

Nobody approached him. Nobody said a thing to him.

Three days later the cops came out to find a van parked across the street.  They go and check and decide to have it towed.

The tow truck hooks up and starts the lift.  There is a large BOOM.  Both sides of the van blow out.  The one on the street side throwing a blast of water.  The otherside is a buzz saw.  Tens of thousands of hardened half inch ball bearings flew towards the courthouse.  The cops standing station in front of the main door turn into a splash of red mist.  The front walls of the courthouse are pocked with holes and every window is blown out.

People start streaming out of the building, the sounds of emergency response vehicles start to echo through the streets.

10 minutes later the first EMS units are on site.  People are standing around, dazed.

15 minutes after the initial blast the first shot rings out.  In the course of less than a minute 30 shots ring out.  20 people drop, dead or wounded.

The cops take cover behind their cars, looking for the shooter.  The citizens are busy looking for cover.

Suddenly rounds start impacting into the backs of the cops from behind.  Not small caliber rounds.  These are 30-06 with full metal jackets.  The body armor the cops wear to protect them from pistol rounds do nothing to stop the bullets that impact.  8 shots, 8 dead cops.

Silence but for the screaming of the wounded and the yelling of the cops as they organize to rush the shooters.

20 minutes after the blast the cops rush forward in both directions.  Moving from cover to cover they finally make it.  They start shooting into the men laying there behind the rifles.

Nothing.  A quick kick to the “men” shows that it is just a dummy behind an airsoft rifle.

The search begins.  All that is found is a anarchists symbol.

Two days later the regional director of the FBI stands in front of the courthouse talking to a gaggle of reporters.

“We will find the people responsible for this and bring them to justice!  These right-wing extremists will be caught!”

The fat old man slowly pressed the trigger of his Remington 700, the optic mounted on it allowed him to see the director clearly from 300 meters.

One shot rang out.

…

The reason the left and the people in power fear the right is that our fiction is scarier than their reality.  People on the right consistently show planning.  They anticipate.

It is never just one thing, it is a sequence of events.  Every action designed to elicit a response.

Those response are known because they have read the same documents.  They have studied logistics.  They have studied 4th generation guerrilla warfare.

They have practiced and practiced.  They know how to blend in.  They know how to choose their hides.  They know that the egress is just as important as the ingress.

They know when to leave.

They understand that the goals is to destroy the will of their enemy.  They understand that the goal is to bring the terror and violence to the leaders, not just the troops in the street.  They understand that taking out the leader isn’t nearly as useful as taking out the people that surround the leader.

They understand what it means to promise their live, honor and fortune to the country they love and to fight for the right to be free.

Is a newborn racists? According to the left the answer is “yes”. If you are white, if you are “cis”, if you are male you are born hating.

This does not match reality. Nobody believes that a black man is any less capable of a white man. Nobody believes that a woman is any less intelligent than a man.

People have the opportunity, in these United States, to grow and become anything they are able to do.

This does mean that I don’t expect to see very many female lineman climbing poles and pulling heavy cables into place.

20 years ago you never saw a woman flagman, today they are common.

Regardless, people are not born hating others. They need to be taught to hate others. Sometimes that is done by the people you are with. All you have to do is visit an inner city community and you will quickly learn about hate. We’ve seen the videos of 5 year olds hating on a cop just because he is a cop.

He had to be taught that.

You are also taught to hate by the people that hate you. When a group constantly attacks you, you will learn to hate them.

So the question is: Who taught the left to hate?

P.S. I use the rhetorical “nobody…” to mean “not part of a third world shit hole country.” Yes, I know there are exceptions.

This is just a bunch of links that I collected and didn’t write about.

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In 2009 the supreme court heard the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. At issue was the question of a ban on corporate electioneering communications ( 2 U.S.C. §441b ).

Citizens United was a non-profit corporation that had made a film about Hillary Clinton and wanted to release it for video-on-demand via cable companies. They were going to pay the cable companies so that the film would be free to viewers.

The Federal Election Campaign Act limited what a corporation or union could say.

Consider the situation, you and a few of your best friends want to make a movie about Brandon. You all put up money and pay to have it professionally done. That means hiring talent, directors, crew and a dozen other things. All of these people want a contract to protect themselves and to know what they are getting into.

Because of the FECA the situation is this, if one of you decides to be the front man, all the contracts are written personally between that person and every other person involved. That person is now liable for anything that happens. And since it is them personally that the contracts are with all of their wealth is also at risk.

In addition, since all the contracts are with them, if they decide to do something you don’t like, you have no legal voice.

The answer to this is to incorporate. This is the case for almost every movie made. Somebody decides to make a movie, they find somebody to green light the movie, they form a production company. That company exists for the duration of the creation of the movie. At the end of that time the corporation is dissolved. This protects everybody involved.

But under the FECA doing this the first way, as a personal project was legal, doing it as a corporation was illegal.

Citizens United expect to run afoul of the law so the asked for injunctive relief against the Federal Election Commission. The case made its way to the supreme court, was argued in 2009 and the opinion was issued in 2010. 2 years after the election.

The Court noted that §441b’s prohibition on corporate independent expenditures and electioneering communications is a ban on speech and “political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it, whether by design or inadvertence.” Accordingly, laws that burden political speech are subject to “strict scrutiny,” which requires the government to prove that the restriction furthers a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest. According to the Court, prior to Austin there was a line of precedent forbidding speech restrictions based on a speaker’s corporate identity, and after Austin there was a line permitting them. In reconsidering Austin, the Court found that the justifications that supported the restrictions on corporate expenditures are not compelling.
— Citizens United v. FEC

The Citizens United case became one of the boogiemen of the left. They claimed that because of Citizens United, the wealth would be able to buy elections. The implication being that the wealthy were Republicans and thus Republicans would be buying elections. They were projecting of course.

With very little research it is easy to see that many Democratic institutions have been funneling vast amounts of money into elections for years and years.

To get an idea of how bad it really is, just ask any Union Representative “Who was the last Republican that the union endorsed?” In most cases they have no answer.

Using their standard battle rules, the left immediately labeled that which they disliked with a pejorative and proceed to attack every time a conservative donated money to a conservative cause as “dark money.”

Dark money is the bugaboo of the left. The Koch Brothers were constantly attacked as dark money. Never mind the fact that people like Soros and Bloomberg spend much more, each, on leftist causes.

The definition of dark money is funding that can not be traced back to a person or entity. In general, if you give money to a political candidate above a certain level it is recorded and is a public record. Certain donations to nonprofits (PACS) are also reported.

The way around this is that money given to some funds are not required to be reported. That fund can then donate money to other nonprofits and that donation is reported. So you give $20,000 to a Republican candidate and you go to jail. You give $20,000 to a Democrat candidate and it is ignored. If you give $20,000 to a pro-republican fund and they in turn give $20,000 to a PAC working in support of that candidate and your name is never mentioned by that PAC and there are no laws broken.

If this is done by conservatives, it is dark money.

If it is done by leftists it is just business as usual.

A new group anti-gun group has shown up, Project Unloaded.

The mission of Project Unloaded is to create a new cultural narrative that guns make us less safe.

Research shows that teens and young adults are forming opinions and making decisions about guns. Through creative and cultural campaigns, Project Unloaded establishes safe spaces for open conversations about guns and provides accurate information about gun safety to inspire the next generation to choose on their own terms not to own a gun.

This group is almost entirely funded by a series of fund managed by Arabella Advisors. There are four major funds managed by AA and they are all receiving vast amounts of ‘dark money’, over $1.5 billion according to tax filings. LIBERAL DARK MONEY JUGGERNAUT RAISES $1.6 BILLION TO FLOOD LEFT-WING GROUPS WITH CASH, TAX FORMS REVEAL

All of this is to say that once again we are winning. As our rights are acknowledge by the Supreme Court, the left immediately pivots to a new way of attacking.

On Thursday 2022-10-20, federal judge John L. Sinatra, Jr. issued a TRO against the state of New York in regards to parts of the Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCI).

As part of the CCI NY state attempted to make so many different places within the state “sensitive places” that it would become nearly impossible for a CC holder to travel or go anyplace where they were not in violation of the law. Since the law states that violation of a sensitive place is a felony a person exercising their constitutional guaranteed right to keep and bear arms could become a prohibited person.

The courts have ruled numerous times that exercising your rights does not rise to the level of allowing the cops to have a “reasonable suspicion” that a crime is happening. I.e. the cops can’t arrest you for protesting in a public square or trespass you for filming when you enter a government building (exceptions for certain secured buildings).

In Hardaway, Jr v Nigrelli (First Deputy Superintendent NY State Police) the judge found that NY’s ban on firearms in churches (et all) is unconstitutional. He goes on to say that most of the CCI is unconstitutional but because Hardaway is only challenging the restriction in churches that is all the TRO covers.

They way this works is that the plaintiffs go to a judge and request an injunction. The court then schedules a hearing. The parties are allowed to file different pleadings. Often times the party that expects to loss will request delays. Thus it could take months or even years before the case is actually heard by the judge.

The plaintiffs can request a temporary restraining order (injunction). The TRO remains in effect until the case is heard. This can force the parties to move more rapidly to the actual hearing.

In order for the judge to grant a TRO the judge must believe that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of the case. In other words, the judge believes that the plaintiffs will win. In some cases the judge will grant parts of the request and deny other parts.

We saw this in the Antonyuk v. Hochul (Governor of the State of New York). This is the GOA case where they are suing the state of New York over the complete CCI.

Plaintiffs thus seek emergency injunctive relief, in the form of a temporary restraining order and/or preliminary injunction, halting enforcement and further implementation of this patently unconstitutional statute, until a decision on the merits can be reached.

In the second case the judge issued a TRO which blocked part of the CCI but allowed other parts to remain. He then held the TRO for 3 business days to allow the state to appeal the TRO, which they did. The appellate court blocked (held) the TRO. The judge is still likely to find the CCI unconstitutional when the case is finally heard but in the meantime the CCI stays in effect.

Except for the part about banning guns in churches. Hardaway, Jr v. Nigrelli has a TRO which does block that part of the CCI.

Another win for us.
Hardaway v. Nigrelli Decision and Order
GOA: COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORY AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF (v CCI)

We had our first contributor posting from a reader. Thank you very much!

Last week we had some positive feedback on tracking court cases as well as “more about guns!”

I have tried to add a little more humor to some of this weeks posts.

For Tuesday Tunes, do prefer the short “here, enjoy this” posts or longer “things to think about while you listen”?

For people that are sending us prompts for articles, THANK YOU. Please let us know if you want us to acknowledge your contribution and if so, how. If you are a member we would like to add your membership levels to such prompts.

Is there anything you’ve wanted us to opine about but which we have not? Or which we did to little or to deep of a dive about?

On Oct 16th, 2022 somebody decided that a electronic message board alongside I-93 in NH could be put to better use than “Shoulder Closed, 1/2 Mile Ahead.”

The despicable evil person parked somewhere near before making their way to the control box. They managed to open the control box with no reported damage. At that point the reprogrammed the sign to flash an entirely different message.

One that was so disrespectful and rude.

A construction crew was called out. They found the vanalized message board and immediately turned it around so as to not offend anybody driving past. With a little bit of effort they were able to shut it down.

PSA: Do not go to unattended roadside message boards and reprogram them to say “Fuck Joe Biden.”

That is all.
NH DOT sign in Manchester vandalized to display vulgar message about Biden