Just a couple questions about the Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath

First and foremost, when and why did our police forces in this country transition from this:

to this:

My father was a police officer at the municipal, county, and state level from 1963 until 1991.  He has lamented to me on numerous occasions about how when he first began working as a police officer, he was considered a "peace officer" who was much like the men in the top photo, whereas by the end of his career in the early 1990s, "peace officers" were now "law enforcement officers" who were much more likely to dress and act like the men in the bottom photo.

For some Americans, footage of the house-by-house searches conducted by Boston Pollice dressed like the law enforcement officers in the bottom photo was their initial introduction to the radical change in police weapons, uniforms, and tactics that has taken place over the last few decades.  Oh sure, people know on some sort of level that this shift has taken place, but even I, being very aware of the excesses of our current federal and state governments, was quite shocked by the news and blogger footage of the house-to-house searches and the Orwellian justifications given for those searches that took place in and around Boston in the aftermath of the two bombs being set off at the Boston Marathon on April 15th.

Watch this minute-and-a-half report from a local Boston news station.  It is tragically enlightening beyond belief.  You see the strong arm Gestapo tactics - complete with menacing them with barking German Shepherds - being used against innocent homeowners; a compliant news reporter using Orwellian language such as his description of these homeowners, "being rescued at the point of a gun," and worst of all, the sheep-like interviewees who had no problem having a police officer stick a gun in their face all in the name of keeping them safe.  This is in Boston, Massachusetts, mind you - the birthplace of the American Revolution.  If the militia farmers from the Concord Bridge could see this news report, they would puke:



A blogger named Bob Owens, who writes for PJ Media (see my blogroll) and is much more eloquent and succinct than I, explained this phenomenon best:

When you arm, armor, and equip peace officers like combat infantrymen, but don’t give them the training, don’t be remotely surprised when they sling lead like a bunch of scared recruits just out of basic training. If you want cops to act like peace officers, force them to act like peace officers, not make-believe adjuncts to Seal Team 6.

Mr. Owens was writing these words not only in response to the Gestapo-like tactics used by these officers as they forced homeowners out of their houses at gunpoint in clear violation of the 4th Amendment, but also to the ventilation with their AR-15 and M-4 rifles of the boat in which surviving Marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev was hiding. This brings me to my next question. Initial reports said that Boston Police engaged in a 1-hour shootout with Tsarnaev as he hid in that boat. Then all of a sudden, it was reported that Tsarnaev wasn't even armed when he was finally taken down and arrested. So did the 1-hour firefight take place or did it not? Did the cops shoot at that boat for a whole hour without the the unarmed Tsarnaev shooting back, and if they did shoot at the boat for a whole hour, how in the world is Tsarnaev still possibly alive?

My time is limited, but I have more questions to ask in the near future.

2nd Amendment right to self-defense survives a U.S. Senate vote, but is circling the drain in California

It was a busy last two days in the fight to retain our God-given rights to defend ourselves, our families, our states, and our country.

Yesterday, a slew of disgusting, horrific, treasonous anti-self defense bills passed through their respective committees in the Democrat-controlled California state Senate.  Here are what some of the seven bills that passed committee propose to do:

SB 47 - PASSED 5-2. expands the definition of “assault weapons” to BAN the future sale of rifles that have been designed/sold and are equipped to use the “bullet button” or similar device, requires NEW “assault weapon” registration, requires registration of ALL those semi-auto rifles that are currently possessed to retain legal possession 

SB 108 - PASSED 5-2 requires mandatory locked storage of firearms within a locked house regardless of whether anyone is present. 

SB 53 - PASSED 5-2 requires persons to buy an annual ammunition purchase permit, requires the registration and thumbprint of the purchaser for each ammunition purchase, and bans online and mail order sales of ammunition to Californians. 

 SB 396 - PASSED 5-2 BANS the POSSESSION of any magazine with a capacity to accept more than ten cartridges, including currently legally possessed "grandfathered" large capacity magazines. 

SB 567 - PASSED 5-2 changes the technical definition of a shotgun, which would turn all handguns into short-barrel shotguns that are illegal to own. 

SB 374 - PASSED 5-2 Requires gun owners to register every semi-automatic rifle, including rimfire. Requires gun owners of existing semi-auto rifles to submit fingerprints and forms to DOJ, which will be tracked in a government database. 

SB 755 - PASSED 5-2 provides that any person who has been convicted of certain misdemeanors may not, within 10 years of the conviction, own, purchase, receive, possess, or have under his or her custody or control, any firearm. Violation of this prohibition is punishable by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year or in the state prison, by a fine not exceeding $1,000, or by both that imprisonment and fine. This bill would add to the list of misdemeanors, the conviction for which is subject to those prohibitions, misdemeanor offenses of threatening a peace officer, removing a weapon from the person of a peace officer, hazing, transferring a firearm without completing the transaction through a licensed firearms dealer, furnishing ammunition to a minor, possession of ammunition by a person prohibited from having a firearm, furnishing ammunition to a person prohibited from possessing ammunition, carrying ammunition onto school grounds, carrying a loaded or concealed weapon if the person has been previously convicted of a crime against a person or property, or of a narcotics or dangerous drug violation, or if the firearm is not registered, participation in any criminal street gang, a public offense committed for the benefit of a criminal street gang, disobedience to the terms of an injunction that restrains the activities of a criminal street gang. By changing the definition of a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

How dare they? These pieces of slime in our state's Capitol that voted for this garbage are traitors to our state and to our country.  Lord, how I wish my wife and I had the ability to leave this God-forsaken - and I mean that term literally - state of California.

On the other hand, there was a small bit of good news today, as the anti-self defense bills in the U.S. Senate went down in flames... for now.  It bothers me that the votes on the bill and its amendments were in the range of 54-46, 52-48, 52-48, and so on.  That is way too close.  Once upon a time in this country, when we had a love of liberty and a lot more backbone, those votes would have been more like 95-5.  The one vote that wasn't really close, I am very happy to say, was Dianne Feinstein's proposed assault weapons ban.  That one went down by a vote of 40-60!

Later, in the White House Rose Garden, our Dear Leader was not at all happy about the outcome of the vote on his dreams of gun control.  He made it clear in his temper tantrum that his aim and goal is to retain Democrat control of the Senate and gain control of the Republican-led House in the 2014 mid-terms. 

I hate to sound pessimistic, but I believe it will only be a matter of time before these federal anti-self defense laws pass.  Maybe not in 2014; maybe not even in 2020.  But as the demographic makeup of our country continues to change, and we gain more people - both legally and illegally - who are used to the idea of a totalitarian government providing everything for them while telling them how to live their lives, our federal government will grow larger and more totalitarian as a result.

As for California, we are already there.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be."  -Thomas Jefferson

Blow by Blow: What really happened in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012

I have been meaning to make people aware of uber-columnist Jack Cashill's account of the approximately 9 hour - yes, I said 9 hour - firefight at our embassy in Benghazi, Libya.

It has been hard enough keeping Benghazi in the news cycle, as Obama's lapdog media want nothing more than for the whole affair to go away, much like Operation Fast and Furious and the continuing questions about Obama's birth certificate and Social Security number.

Now that Boston and its iconic Marathon have been hit by a terrorist attack, keeping Benghazi in the news will be even more difficult.  One of the biggest tragedies of this is that I believe too few people realize the heroics that took place in the late night and early morning hours of September 11th and 12th, 2012.

Were you aware that one of the former SEALs-turned-security technicians who was killed that night was all the way across Libya in the city of Tripoli when the firefight started?  By the end of the firefight, he had gotten himself all the way across Libya by hook or by crook in order to assist his brothers-in-arms.  Here is that excerpt from Jack Cashill's narrative:

Meanwhile, in Tripoli, 13 hours away by car, Woods’ old Navy Seal friend Glen Doherty and six colleagues, most of them CIA, commandeered a jet to join the fray. In Benghazi, the Libyan militias reorganized outside the CIA annex and launched an attack there shortly after midnight. The GRS and DSS agents, along with reliable local security, held the attackers off until daybreak. At 5 a.m. Doherty and his crew reached the CIA annex in Benghazi. They quickly took up defensive positions and helped the agents in place fend off a new wave of attackers trying to scale the wall....

Until I read Cashill's article, I had no idea about most of what I read about what had occurred that night. Hollywood is always looking for good stories. This one is begging to be filmed. Don't bet on it, though. Unlike the bin Laden raid, in which Hollywood received more than full cooperation from the Obama administration in making Zero Dark Thirty, I doubt Obama and his minions would be quite as forthcoming about what went down in Benghazi that night. Pity.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." -Thomas Jefferson