The “Keep Americans Safe Act” is a proposed Federal law that would ban the sale, transfer, possession, import, or manufacture of magazines over 15 rounds, with the obligatory carve out for law enforcement.
“We in Las Vegas know all too well what happens when a mass shooter is armed with a weapon equipped with a high-capacity magazine,” Congresswoman Titus said, referring to the 2017 Harvest Festival shooting that claimed the lives of 60 people. “As a gun owner myself, I know these are not for sport or hunting, they are killing machines. The Keep Americans Safe Act would protect families, law enforcement, and community members from this deadly form of gun violence.”
It would require all magazines that are manufactured to have a serial number permanently engraved on it. It also mandates the mandatory buyback (which of course is a politically palatable way of saying confiscation) of all magazines holding more than 15 rounds.
The US Attorney’s office has just filed a brief stating that suppressors aren’t arms and are therefore not protected by the Second Amendment.
This is twisting the definitions, since 26 USC 5845 defines a firearm thusly:
The term “firearm” means (1) a shotgun having a barrel or barrels of less than 18 inches in length; (2) a weapon made from a shotgun if such weapon as modified has an overall length of less than 26 inches or a barrel or barrels of less than 18 inches in length; (3) a rifle having a barrel or barrels of less than 16 inches in length; (4) a weapon made from a rifle if such weapon as modified has an overall length of less than 26 inches or a barrel or barrels of less than 16 inches in length; (5) any other weapon, as defined in subsection (e); (6) a machinegun; (7) any silencer (as defined in section 921 of title 18, United States Code); and (8) a destructive device.
The Chinese, on the other hand, are a much more credible threat. PLAN (the Chinese Navy) is large, modern, and growing. Six modern, recent nuclear submarines. The diesel submarines that can’t do well in the open ocean work quite well in the shallow waters of the China sea, and PLAN has 45 of them.
They have 46 new destroyers, 44 frigates, and 3 carriers with more under construction.
Contrast that with the US Navy. We have :
11 carriers (8 of them are more than 25 years old)
9 amphibious assault ships (aka baby carriers, and half of them are more than 25 years old),
9 cruisers (all of them are more than 30 years old),
75 destroyers (a third of them are older than 25 years), and
51 submarines (half of them are more than 25 years old, but all are nuclear).
Also keep in mind that we have to monitor 2 oceans. PLAN only has to cover one. Our Navy still has a decided advantage, but the Chinese are building a lot of ships, and the US isn’t.
Nuclear Weapons
The Chinese own an estimated 600 nuclear weapons and they are expected to have double that number by 2030. It is also estimated that only 24 of them are actually deployed on delivery devices. In both cases, I say estimated because no one really knows for sure. Since they are producing roughly 120 warheads a year, they are quickly growing in capability.
Contrast that with the US stockpile of 3700 operational warheads. That seems impressive until you realize that over 1900 of those warheads are in storage and are not available for use. While the tactical nuclear arsenal could once be deployed on NATO-designated aircraft within minutes, today the readiness level is measured in months. Since 2010, when Obama signed a new nuclear policy, the US has committed to not developing new warheads. He wanted to push us to a near unilateral nuclear disarmament.
For those reasons, China will be a near peer in deliverable nuclear warheads within the next 5 to 7 years.
Too Little, Too Late?
Forcing NATO to begin providing for their own defense and providing their own nuclear umbrella is a wise move, and one that I would like to see Trump continue to pursue. China is our most dangerous and most credible adversary. Russia is in the middle of asking for North Korean assistance in order to invade Ukraine. They just aren’t in a position to threaten the entire world.
China has all of the people it needs. They are in the middle of securing access to minerals and other natural resources worldwide. There are tons of natural resources just to their north, and the only reason that they haven’t gone to go get it is that those resources belong a strong nuclear power. Once Russia collapses, it is theirs for the taking. Opposing Russia and trying to get Europe and the US to fight them is exactly what China wants.
The time to begin producing systems to defend ourselves is now, but we are too busy seeing our tax money syphoned off by greedy, corrupt politicians on both sides of the aisle for that to happen.
The largest threat to the US is, in my opinion, the internal threat posed by the insurgent movement being backed by our own intelligence agencies/bureaucrats. China is our largest external threat.
I have been trying to build a pool. The city has been denying my building permit for one thing after the other. I even printed and emailed them a copy of the city’s zoning laws for my area, showing that my pool is in compliance. They responded by forwarding an email from the consultants who handle their building permitting process, again denying my permit by choosing to infer something into the code that isn’t there, and drawing a legal opinion based upon that inferred phrase.
Looking up the consultants, they are a firm that specializes in “protecting the environment by controlling community growth.” The woman who is giving her legal analysis? She has a bachelor’s degree in environmental science, not law.
So I have a decision to make on whether or not I should sue. Suing them will be very expensive, like tens of thousands of dollars, with no guarantee that I will win.
I hate all levels of government. It’s things like this that sometimes make me believe that a Somalia style anarchy wouldn’t be as bad as this is. I am trying to build a pool, not commit genocide. This town is so small that it doesn’t have a fire department, and more than half of its residents don’t even have sewage and rely on septic tanks, but they are worried about protecting the environment from my swimming pool.
I should run for town council and, once in office, go on a DOGE style firing rampage.
The Houthis fired missiles at a US aircraft carrier. They have announced that no US ships will be permitted to sail through the Red Sea. Trump is a President who is doing all that he can to keep this nation out of conflict. However, the US cannot ignore a state sponsored terrorist group telling the US that they cannot sail in a given area. The first time this was done has caused the Marines to sing about it for over 200 years after President Madison ordered them to go kick some Barbary ass. The Navy has a long tradition of enforcing freedom of navigation. That is the entire reason why we have a Navy.
In response, Trump could probably order US aircraft to do some serious damage to the Houthi encampments. That will be time consuming and expensive, but he will probably do it. More effective in my opinion would be to go ahead and back up his warning to Iran. They are supplying the weapons, they pay the price.
Initiate Praying Mantis II. For those who don’t remember, Praying Mantis was a naval action in 1988 that saw the Iranian navy get its ass kicked over an 8 hour period by the US Navy. I don’t think that they learned their lesson the first time.
The Iranian navy has 6 submarines, 7 frigates, 3 corvettes, and a whole bunch of smaller craft. I think that sinking most of their Navy would perhaps be appropriate. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of days. If they try to defend those ships with aircraft, shooting most of them down would also be appropriate. If the UN and International court don’t like it, that’s just too damned bad.
The Florida law that prohibits minors from purchasing firearms does not violate the Second and Fourteenth Amendments because it is consistent with our historical tradition of firearm regulation. From the founding to the late-nineteenth century, our law limited the purchase of firearms by minors in different ways. The Florida law also limits the purchase of firearms by minors. And it does so for the same reason: to stop immature and impulsive individuals, like Nikolas Cruz, from harming themselves and others with deadly weapons.
The 11th Circuit on Friday ruled that the laws at the time of the nation’s founding restricted the purchase of firearms by minors and defined a minor as someone under the age of 21. The court stated that minors needed parental consent to access guns, even if they were performing militia service.
“First, minors generally could not purchase firearms because they lacked the judgment and discretion to enter contracts and to receive the wages of their labor. Second, minors were subject to the power of their parents and depended on their parents’ consent to exercise rights and deal with others in society,” Chief U.S. Circuit Judge William Pryor wrote on behalf of the majority.
Except Nikolas Cruz wasn’t a minor. He was over the age of 18 when he bought that rifle. This means that those citizens who are 18, 19, and 20 years old are not adults, if one is to accept this reading of the US Constitution. If one were to accept this definition, then those in that age group cannot enter contracts, receive wages, and must be dependent upon their parents consent to exercise rights or deal with others in society. To say otherwise means that those in this age group are second class citizens.
This is a court that is clearly twisting the law to mean whatever they decide it will mean in order to achieve their desired results. Anyone who depends upon the courts to save them is sadly delusional.
Again, there is only one sure result- this nation will fall. Whatever replaces it is likely to not look like it did in George Washington’s day, or even in Teddy Roosevelt’s day. Those days are gone forever and will not return.
Proving that Trump is merely trying to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, a total of 26 Republicans in the Senate voted to keep funding USAID in full. Of course, some of them made vague claims in order to make it seem pragmatic that they do so. The Republicans have both houses of Congress AND the White House, yet don’t seem willing to use that power to do anything useful. You have to admire the Democrats- they at least know how to get shit done. When they had power, they forced things through.
There is no saving this nation. We will keep spending until the entire thing collapses. Why? Because everyone agrees that cuts need to be made, but no one wants to actually make them.
This nation is doomed to failure, and anyone who can use a calculator should be able to see that.
Just because Democrats are your enemy doesn’t mean that the Republicans are your friends. They are all, every politician, in it for money and unchecked power.
Trump talked about the graft and corruption that has been the modus operandi of our government when he mentioned that Stacey Abrams was one of the leaders of a coalition of NGOs that got $2 billion to reduce carbon emissions. The left immediately circled the wagons to say that Trump had been “debunked.”
“Stacey Abrams has not received a penny of this EPA grant,”
Of course there isn’t going to be a check that reads “kickbacks” or “corruption” in the memo line, but let’s look at what she herself had to say:
In 2023 and 2024, I led a program called Vitalizing De Soto. We worked in a tiny town in south Georgia to demonstrate that by replacing energy-inefficient appliances with efficient appliances, you can lower your cost. And in fact, we accomplished that for 75% of the community. They got appliances that are lowering their bills,
Look at the facts:
There are 400 people in Desoto, Georgia living in 125 households. If she bought new appliances for 75% of them, that makes new appliances for 94 households. She claims that each household got 6 appliances. At $2,000 per appliance, the entire project should cost no more than two and a quarter million. Setting aside the fact that this project to reduce electric bills through buying new appliances is an incredibly inefficient way to do it, one has to wonder how many people skimmed off the top, received kickbacks, and were paid inflated salaries.
If the goal is to get people to purchase new, energy saving appliances, all the government had to do was give a tax rebate for people who buy new appliances. Instead, this was obviously a Democratic strategy that used taxpayer funds to hand out freebies in the contested state of Georgia in the run up to the 2024 election. That funds were skimmed off the top and pain to corrupt politicians was also part of the plan. That’s how so many in Congress get rich.
This is the story about how cops will try to lie to gain entry to your house. As an example, I am going to use the story of Stephanie Rapkin, a woman who lived in Shorewood, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee. She was 64 years old at the time of these events. She was on her way home in 2020 when BLM decided to stage a protest in front of her house. They were blocking traffic and wouldn’t allow her to get to her house. She got in a confrontation with a 17 year old protester and wound up spitting in his face. The confrontation was caught on film. She then went inside of her home. Police were called. She was arrested then released due to COVID restrictions.
This is what BLM and their willing accomplices do- they provoke a confrontation while filming it. Then the cops come over and arrest you. That’s exactly what happened here. Never open your door or speak to police, they aren’t there with your best interests in mind. This continued the next day, when BLM decided to protest directly in front of her house. This is how the press characterized it:
peaceful protesters showed up on the sidewalk of Rapkin’s home to denounce the actions she took the day prior. The woman came out of her home and again started arguing with the demonstrators. That exchange led to her slapping and shoving one of the protestors.
Shortly after, police arrived at Rapkin’s residence and attempted to arrest her. At that time Rapkin kneed an officer in the groin before she was placed in the cop car. Rapkin is (still alive and) now facing criminal charges for battery, disorderly conduct, resisting an officer and battery to law enforcement,
The cops spent the next 30 minutes knocking on her door, but she didn’t answer. Good for her. Eventually, the cops decided that she wasn’t opening the door because she was probably committing suicide, even though there was no evidence that this was the case. They used this pretext to kick down her door, enter her home, search her home, and arrest her. Rapkin, who is an attorney, pointed out to them that they were illegally in her home without a warrant, but they arrested her for disorderly conduct anyway, claiming that they were there to check on her welfare and didn’t need a warrant due to exigent circumstances. During the arrest, she kicked one of the cops in the balls. Good for her.
The police were caught on camera before they entered the home, discussing how they were going to arrest her on sight, and discussing how to find a pretext to enter her home. Rapkin sued them, and the discussions about circumventing her rights were enough to prove that the cops knowingly violated Rapkin’s constitutional rights, thus removing their qualified immunity. The case was settled out of court for $760,000.
Zone three cities are areas where violence has has taken place with little to no attempt at mitigating response from local authorities. Additionally, police and/or prosecutors are likely to bring the full weight of the law down upon those who attempt to defend themselves from these actors, or those who speak out against them.
Don’t think that, just because Trump won the election, that the cops, officials, and communists in Milwaukee have simply given up or decided to follow the law. No, they are simply biding their time until they can attack again. Stay out of Milwaukee. I wonder what the loss of USAID slush fund money has done to the movement?
