Dems’ New ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban Is About as Gun-Illiterate as You’d Expect

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Not to be outdone by gun control promoters in the House, a group of anti-gun senators released a new “assault weapons” ban earlier this week.

“Americans across the nation are asking Congress to reinstate the federal ban on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” reads a press release from sponsor Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. “If we’re going to put a stop to mass shootings and protect our children, we need to get these weapons of war off our streets.”

Legislative text still wasn’t available at the time of this writing, but a first look at some of the outlined portions of it shows that it would be about as effective at curbing gun violence as Feinstein’s 1994 weapons ban (which wasn’t).

Since the term “assault weapon” has no intrinsic meaning either in the gun world or the legal world, the definition means whatever the anti-gun politician using it wants it to mean. So what makes something an “assault weapon” in this case?

The bill “bans any assault weapon that accepts a detachable magazine and has one or more military characteristics including a pistol grip, a forward grip, a barrel shroud, a threaded barrel or a folding or telescoping stock.”

So the bill wouldn’t outright ban all semi-automatic weapons (as some have already suggested); rather, it would just affect semi-automatics that have certain features, most of which are aesthetic or ergonomic in nature and none of which affect how the gun itself fires. They’re all also features typically found on a modern sporting rifle (known as an AR-15), which has been the anti-gun crowd’s big boogeyman for the last few years.

But those features can look pretty scary if you don’t know what you’re looking at. That’s why we put together the Firepower 101 series last spring.

According to the press release, the legislation would also ban so-called “assault pistols,” which are defined as handguns that weigh over 50 ounces unloaded. If that sounds obtuse and silly, it’s because it is. Weight itself doesn’t necessarily make a gun more dangerous. A violent gangbanger or armed robber can do a lot more damage with a light, compact semi-automatic handgun than an antique flintlock pistol.

It also would ban pistol stabilizing braces that magically “transform assault pistols into assault rifles” because they allow shooters to “fire more accurately.” Of course, if accuracy was what made something an “assault weapon,” stabilized pistols aren’t really where someone would want to start banning. Hunting and competition rifles are designed to be far more accurate.

It also bans magazines and other “ammunition feeding devices that hold more than 10 rounds,” but current owners would be able to keep their existing magazines. This, of course, would do little more than put law-abiding gun owners at a disadvantage against non-compliant criminals who still won’t have to reload as often when committing violent crimes.

However, to give credit where credit is due, the bill would exempt all guns and magazines affected by the legislation that are lawfully owned at the time of passage. That would seem like a fairly obvious exception to include, but the Trump administration’s recent bump stock ban didn’t even allow that.

Feinstein has introduced this bill into a Senate with a 53-47 Republican majority, so it’s pretty much just for show until either that math changes or something motivates 13 Republicans to go along with it. (For more from the author of “Dems’ New ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban Is About as Gun-Illiterate as You’d Expect” please click HERE)

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Pack of MS-13 Illegal Aliens Released by Judge Stab 16-Year-Old

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When you bring in hundreds of thousands of young males from the most violent countries through a lawless border, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the results. It’s called the Long Island effect. The latest victim of our “unaccompanied alien child” policy and judicial amnesty is a 16-year-old boy who was stabbed almost to death by three “Dreamers” who were members of MS-13, according to local police. They were all released by a federal judge.

WABC in New York reported yesterday that on Wednesday, a group of illegal aliens believed to be tied to MS-13 attacked a 16-year-old boy and stabbed him in the back outside a Burger King.

According to police, three suspects were arrested and charged with assault. Here are their profiles:

Ramon Arevalo Lopez, 19, entered illegally in December 8, 2016, and was apprehended by DHS in October 2017. He should have been thrown out of the country, but he was released by a federal judge.

Nobeli Montes Zuniga, 20, and Oscar Canales Molina, 17, “entered the country illegally as unaccompanied minors.” Molina was apprehended by the feds in July 2017 but was also released by a federal district judge in November 2017.

We have a lot of our own inherent violence in this country, but now we have “animals,” as Trump rightfully calls them, being released into our country and committing completely avoidable violence.

This is the big lie the media is not telling you about the border flow. When you see pictures of 16- and 17-year-old “children” coming here and wrongly being treated as refugees, being released by judges, and placed in our communities, many of them are your 19- to 20-year-old MS-13 members committing the most gruesome crimes just a year or two later. Not all of them, but way too many.

Geraldine Hart, police commissioner of Suffolk County, New York, indicated last May at the president’s roundtable on MS-13 violence in Long Island that the entirety of the MS-13 crisis over the past few years is because of the UACs and that Long Island has it bad because it was the largest recipient of UACs in the nation. “MS-13 sustains itself by constantly recruiting new members, and particularly minors,” said Hart last May 23 with Trump in attendance. “MS-13 members recruit children placed in communities in Suffolk County through the UAC program.” She noted that since 2014, “4,965 UACs have been placed in Suffolk County, making it the largest recipient of UACs in the nation. While the vast majority of these children live law-abiding lives, many of them are susceptible to gang recruitment.”

This reflects the deep problem of criminal aliens coming across our border. It is true that there are a lot of known bad people who come through, but there are also a lot of troubled youth who might not have a paper trail flagged in our international databases, but are very much at risk, particularly when they come in such large numbers and settle in gang-saturated areas. Of all people, Rod Rosenstein explained this dynamic well at that same Long Island roundtable:

“We’re letting people in who are gang members. We’re also letting people in who are vulnerable. Many of these alien children, who have no parents, no family structure — we’re releasing them into communities where they’re vulnerable to recruitment by MS-13. And so some of these kids who come in without any gang ties develop gang ties as a result of the pressure that they face from people that they confront in the communities.”

None of these people are victims of a “severe form of trafficking,” and almost none of them are in the country without any adult relative, the two conditions for eligibility to be treated as a UAC. They are, in fact, self-trafficking themselves in order to reunite with other illegal aliens in this country! They are taking advantage of us, empowering the drug cartels, and serving as the fresh blood of the transnational gangs working for the cartels. They should be repatriated back to their home countries, but instead, we now have judges implementing a greater degree of amnesty than all of the legislative amnesties we’ve successfully defeated.

Thanks to the courts rewriting statutes to include the very evil the UAC statute was designed to combat, 98.2 percent of all Central American teens who came in fiscal year 2017 still remain in our communities.

Think about all of the avoidable crimes that are committed because we refuse to deny entry to or to deport these people. Now the legal system is illegally treating these people like American citizens in all aspects of criminal law. Many of them are released if local judges and sanctuary jurisdiction law enforcement believe the crime wasn’t severe enough. Newsday is reporting that the three stabbers already have swanky lawyers representing them who are claiming their clients are not MS-13 members and are peaceful and innocent.

While everyone is certainly entitled to due process for criminal convictions, there is a broader question to be answered here. We won’t know all the facts about this attack until there is a trial, but we do know they are here illegally. Why then were they not deported when the Suffolk County database had them flagged for being MS-13? Look at how clogged our criminal justice system gets because we refuse to deport the people we can before they commit crimes.

This is a growing trend. A month ago, six MS-13 members were indicted in Lynn, Massachusetts, for killing a boy they suspected was cooperating with law enforcement. They used such force, like “chopping wood,” that the knife was bent, according to prosecutors. According to prosecutors, “At least two of the six defendants have felony records. At least two of the six defendants were previously in immigration custody but were released and went on to commit … murder.” Why weren’t they deported, and why would a judge let them go? The Boston Herald reports that, in the case of at least one, according to the feds, the lawyer “succeeded in convincing an immigration court that he was not in a gang, was not violent, did not pose a threat to the public.”

Sound familiar?

Every illegal alien crime, by definition, is avoidable because we should be enforcing our laws and getting rid of the immigration magnets. But we now have a ubiquitous crisis of known criminal aliens who are let go and are allowed to continue ratcheting up the severity of their crimes. It’s bad enough that we are too weak on sentencing for Americans and so many bad people are on the streets. But when it comes to illegal alien crime, shouldn’t we all agree they should be immediately deported after committing their first crime?

This is why the border issue is not really about the border. It’s about all our communities. Most of the recent invaders are not staying near the border; they are passing through to other states, particularly in the East Coast. At this point, perhaps the only thing that will stop this travesty is when it arrives next door to where the political elites live. (For more from the author of “Pack of Ms-13 Illegal Aliens Released by Judge Stab 16-Year-Old” please click HERE)

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After 18 Employees Skip Work to Attend Immigration Rally, They Receive Brutal Lesson From Their Boss

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By The Blaze. After 18 employees at a Tennessee-based painting company skipped work this week to attend a pro-immigration rally, they received a brutal lesson about right-to-work laws they won’t soon forget.

According to KTNV-TV, 18 employees at Nashville’s Bradley Coatings were fired after they informed their supervisors on Wednesday they were missing work the next day to attend the nationwide protest, “A Day Without Immigrants.”

The protest sought to show the significance that immigrants play in the U.S. workforce while protesting President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

However, on Thursday when the employees didn’t show up to work, they learned that they had been terminated. . .

He added, “I would tell [my boss] he was unfair, after working for them for so many years, giving him our best. They could not understand that it was just one day. We were going to make up that day on a Sunday, but they didn’t understand that, and it was not the best way. They didn’t give us an opportunity and just told us we were fired.” (Read more from “After 18 Employees Skip Work to Attend Immigration Rally, They Receive Brutal Lesson From Their Boss” HERE)

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Company Fires 18 Employees After They Participated in ‘a Day Without Immigrants’

By KTNV. A total of 18 people were fired from a Tennessee business after joining the nation-wide protest “A Day Without Immigrants.”

The 18 employees at Bradley Coatings, Incorporated in Nolensville, Tennessee told their supervisors on Wednesday they’d be taking part in the nationwide movement. Then, on Thursday, they were told they no longer had jobs.

“We are the team leaders directly under the supervisors and they informed us last night that we could not go back to work and the boss said we were fired,” one employee said. . .

“Tennessee is an employment-at-will state which basically means an employer can end your employment at any time without reason or cause. Of course there are a lot of different stipulations, civil rights issues that could stop them from doing that,” Department of Labor and Workforce Development spokesman, Chris Cannon said. (Read more from “Company Fires 18 Employees After They Participated in ‘a Day Without Immigrants'” HERE)

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Links Emerge Between Fusion GPS-Tied Group Connected to False Flag Operation

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A nonprofit group linked to Fusion GPS and partially funded by George Soros worked in recent months with a technology company implicated in a scheme to use fake Russian bots during Alabama’s special Senate election.

The groups, the Democracy Integrity Project (TDIP) and New Knowledge, partnered before the 2018 midterms to track alleged Russian disinformation networks, a website the organizations collaboratively run shows.

Both organizations have links to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), which is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, as well as possible Trump campaign collusion.

SSCI provided New Knowledge with data from various social media companies as part of an investigation into Russian disinformation networks, according to a report New Knowledge released Dec. 17. Two days later, news broke that New Knowledge’s chief executive was involved in a self-described “false flag” operation in the special election for a Senate seat in Alabama, as was another staffer who was the lead author on the Senate report.

TDIP is also linked to the Senate Intelligence panel. Its founder, Daniel J. Jones, was previously a staffer for Democrats on SSCI. He was also in contact in early 2017 with Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the Democratic vice chairman of SSCI. As part of TDIP’s own Trump-Russia investigation, the group hired Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele, the author of the anti-Trump dossier. (Read more from “Links Emerge Between Fusion GPS-Tied Group Connected to False Flag Operation” HERE)

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Democratic Rep. Says She Knows the Real Secret Goal That Trump Wants, and It’s Not a Border Wall

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Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes that a deal could not be made with President Donald Trump to reopen the government because his real secret goal was to clear the U.S. of all immigrants and people of color.

Jayapal enthusiastically agreed to Hayes’ claims about Trump’s true goal for the border wall while referring to a statement made about “white supremacy” by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa).

“Donald Trump is at the border,” said Hayes, “and shutting down the government over this entirely ridiculous enterprise because he almost certainly correctly thinks his political fortunes are dependent on the Steve Kings of the world and the people who love him.”

“People animated by bigotry and fear,” Hayes continued, “people who have come to view their identity as existentially under threat from desperate Honduran moms in flip flops. Those people cannot be appeased, because what they want is not policy, what they want is an ethnically pure America, and thats why this impasse can’t be solved in any normal deal-making terms.” . . .

“He actually could have gotten funding a couple of years ago,” she explained, “or a year ago, for a wall, it was part of a deal that was proposed, not all of us agreed with that deal, but it was proposed to him and he turned it down because his ultimate goal, as you said, to make America pure in the sense of not having immigrants, not having folks of color here, and shutting down every form of legal immigration.”

(Read more from “Democratic Rep. Says She Knows the Real Secret Goal That Trump Wants, and It’s Not a Border Wall” HERE)

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Republicans Join Dems to Push for New Gun Control Law

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We’re just days into the 116th Congress, and congressional Democrats have already gotten the ball rolling on gun control with H.R. 8, also known as the “Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019,” which mandates so-called “universal” background checks for gun purchases.

Who made it “bipartisan”? A handful of Republicans: Reps. Brian Mast, Fla., Chris Smith, N.J., Peter King, N.Y., Fred Upton, Mich., and Brian Fitzpatrick, Penn.

In short, the legislation would require background checks to be performed for almost all firearms transactions with narrow exceptions for things like sales or transfers to family members. Proponents of the legislation claim that expanding the kinds of purchases that require a background check would keep guns from falling into the wrong hands, but the facts don’t really back that up in any meaningful way.

The first problem with that assumption is that the law is only going to affect the law-abiding to begin with. Around 80 percent of gun-related crimes are committed with illegally obtained hardware. Criminals with black-market or stolen guns already operate outside the constraints of the existing system and would continue to do so.

When at least 80 percent of the problem that you’re trying to solve wouldn’t be touched by the law you’re pushing as a solution, it isn’t really a workable solution to the problem; it’s legislative window dressing.

In addition, federal law already requires that background checks be conducted whenever a licensed dealer transfers a gun to someone who isn’t. Federal law also prohibits private sales across state lines unless they go through a federal licensee. This, too, will come with a background check.

(And before anyone brings up that oft-discussed “gun show loophole,” that’s a misnomer and a myth that only serves to show how little the gun control crowd understands gun laws and gun shows.)

Indeed, the only lawful gun sales where background checks do not occur are between private citizens of the same state in states that do not already require background checks for private sales. And these would be the only new territory to be targeted by making background checks “universal,” as the proposed legislation makes exceptions for intra-family transfers.

States have also been historically lax when it comes to reporting information to be added to the NICS database.

Last November, the National Rifle Association estimated that some seven million records were missing from the national database, based on past studies. A number that big probably includes records of felony convictions, illegal aliens, and diagnoses of severe mental illnesses and other such disqualifications.

Furthermore, no government action can predict future behavior. Background checks cannot catch someone who has never done anything to end up in the database, even if previous disqualifying events are properly reported, since they have no disqualifying events.

Instead, all it would do is create an added barrier for law-abiding citizens who wish to exercise their Second Amendment rights by selling or purchasing firearms to other law-abiding citizens.

But why not try it anyway? After all, if the law isn’t inherently unconstitutional and might possibly stop just one person from getting a gun that they shouldn’t, then what harm would it do, aside from making private sales extremely difficult if not impossible?

This is where we have to address the cultural animus behind the proposed legislation. There’s always a push to “do something” about guns. That demand is always (or at least usually) followed the assurance that that “something” isn’t outright gun confiscation, though some lawmakers have become bold enough to suggest even that in recent years.

But what happens when the next version of “commonsense gun safety” fails to stop another bloody murder in Chicago or another mass shooting? Well, then we’ll just have to use the next atrocity to push for the next law, and so on and so forth until we’ve reached the actual endgame of the anti-gun activist cadre, which is a society in which private firearm ownership goes the way of the flintlock pistol.

Background check legislation would be incredibly ineffective at countering gun crime in the United States, but it would be very effective at making things more difficult for law-abiding gun owners. (For more from the author of “Republicans Join Dems to Push for New Gun Control Law” please click HERE)

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Fresh Speculation Says Rod Rosenstein May Leave DOJ He Helped Corrupt

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One of the most powerful men in the country appears poised to step off the Washington chess board. According to multiple reports, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will resign in the coming weeks to make room for the incoming Attorney General William Barr—if Barr is indeed confirmed. According to The New York Times, Rosenstein helped pick Barr and they worked together at the Justice Department.

Rosenstein’s time at the Department of Justice (DOJ) will be remembered with controversy. To the public, he is perhaps best remembered for an alleged plot to convince cabinet members to depose the president using the 25th Amendment and a secret recording Rosenstein would make.

Rosenstein’s critics charge that he used his powerful position to obstruct congressional oversight (in some cases to protect himself personally), direct selective and political prosecution, oversee the Robert Mueller investigation in spite of an apparent conflict of interest, approve the final extension on the government surveillance of U.S. citizen Carter Page in spite of serious questions about the justification, and provide questionable testimony about an alleged incident during which Rosenstein is reported to have threatened congressional staffers.

Rosenstein started his DOJ career in 1989 after graduating from Harvard University when he landed a coveted internship with Mueller, who was then U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts. His long friendship with Mueller led Rosenstein to identify Mueller as his role model.

Rosenstein worked for Independent Counsel Ken Starr’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s role in the White House Travel Office scandal. In 2000, Starr’s office (possibly at Rosenstein’s recommendation) publicly declined prosecution of Hillary Clinton for her role in the scandal. Rosenstein is married to Lisa Barsoomian, who represented Bill Clinton in 1999. Rosenstein also worked for the Clinton administration in the 1990s. (Read more from “Fresh Speculation Says Rod Rosenstein May Leave DOJ He Helped Corrupt” HERE)

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Is Michelle Obama Plotting to Take the White House in 2020?

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By Townhall. Recently, the mainstream media gleefully reported something that many at first dismissed, quickly passing it off as nothing more than a transient morsel of cultural trivia, if not fake news.

Allegedly, a recent Gallup Poll not only bestowed upon Michelle Obama the honor of being The Most Admired Woman in 2018,but also thereby declared her to be more popular than Hillary and Oprah!

I would suggest this news might represent an ominous bellwether of measurable import to all of us who are hoping to see President Trump elected to a second term.

In politics, 2020 is but a blink away, and who will be anointed by the Democrats to challenge President Trump is being decided right now. And I promise you, they are considering Michelle Obama a possibility.

Back in May 2016, I published an op-ed entitled: Overlooking the Obvious, if Hillary is Indicted? In that editorial, I attempted to alert people in the late spring of that election year to the possibility that —in the event Hillary Clinton was indicted for the felonies she committed in connection with her infamous private email server— Michelle Obama stood an excellent chance of becoming the candidate who would be chosen by the DNC to replace Hillary at their National Convention in July. (Read more from “Is Michelle Obama Plotting to Take the White House in 2020?” HERE)

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Michelle Obama wins America’s ‘Most Admired Woman’ in Gallup poll

By CNBC. Former U.S. first lady Michelle Obama has been named America’s “Most Admired Woman” in 2018, ending Hillary Clinton’s 17-year winning run.

The lawyer, author, and activist won the 2018 poll convincingly, securing 15 percent of the mentions among the 1,025 of people surveyed. . .

Michelle Obama 15

Oprah Winfrey 5

Hillary Clinton 4

(Read more from “Michelle Obama wins America’s ‘Most Admired Woman’ in Gallup poll” HERE)

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Remember When Starbucks Caved and Opened Their Bathrooms to Non-Customers? Here’s How That Worked Out.

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There are so many contrived outrages in a given week, let alone a year, that it can be hard to recall any individual instance of outrage after it has already passed. But the infamous Starbucks bathroom outrage was so phony, so absurd, and so disconnected from anything resembling logic or reason, that it deserves to be remembered.

In case you need a refresher course: a Starbucks manager at a location in Philadelphia came under heavy fire last spring after refusing restroom privileges to two non-customers. The men, who happened to be black, asked to use the restroom but were informed that only paying customers were granted access to the facilities. This was not a policy she invented on her own. At the time, many Starbucks locations enforced this rule, just as many other restaurants and stores enforce similar rules. . .

Fast forward a few months. Certain Starbucks locations, less than a year after announcing this enlightened new restroom philosophy, now must install special disposal boxes for used heroin needles. They’ll also be removing regular trashcans from some bathrooms after employees expressed concern about getting pricked with needles while changing out the bags. There have been reports of condoms, alcohol bottles, and blood stains on the floors. Indeed, this bathroom free-for-all has made bathrooms ironically less accessible as some Starbucks restaurants have had to close their stalls for extended periods due to, says the New York Post, “prolonged cleaning.”

It may be fairly pointed out that Starbucks probably had many of these problems even before the new policy. Yes, and that’s exactly the point. That’s why the policy existed in the first place. A spacious, private, single-stall bathroom at a Starbucks in an urban area is an attractive place for drug addicts, drunks, vagrants, and other assorted characters. Most businesses are not interested in becoming de facto homeless shelters or halfway homes. Historically, that’s why they reserve their bathrooms and their tables for people who are actually interested in purchasing their products. It’s not a fail-proof plan, but it’s relatively effective. There’s a reason why these needle disposal boxes only became necessary after they changed the policy. (Read more from “Remember When Starbucks Caved and Opened Their Bathrooms to Non-Customers? Here’s How That Worked Out.” HERE)

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Media’s Angry Response to President Trump’s Oval Office Speech Comes up Short

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A humanitarian and security crisis at the southern border must be addressed, President Donald Trump told the country last night in his first Oval Office address. His speech also addressed the flow of drugs and crime, the high rates of abuse associated with human trafficking, and the use of children as pawns to thwart laws protecting the U.S. border from illegal entry.

“This is the tragic reality of illegal immigration on our southern border. This is the cycle of human suffering that I am determined to end,” Trump said, laying out a plan that includes drug-detection technology, increased border agents and immigration judges, $800 million in humanitarian assistance and medical support, legislative changes to ensure the safe return of children who enter the country illegally, and $5.7 billion for a “physical barrier” to help stop illegal entry.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer quickly responded to the address by saying there’s not really a crisis at the border. They told him that he should end the governmental shutdown, and said they could work on border security concerns in the months to come.

While pundits like to discuss who looked good and who looked bad in last night’s televised addresses, it’s worth pausing in appreciation of the various political leaders for taking part in the debate over national security and the extent of the problem caused by porous borders. Sometimes debates need to take place behind closed doors, but when competing ideologies are on display, it serves as a healthy public education about important issues that affect citizens’ lives.

The Democrats’ theme for the evening was “facts, not fear.” Many major media also adopted the same theme. The coordinated talking point began hours if not days before the speech even aired, with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota saying yesterday morning, “Fact-checkers are eating their Wheaties and getting extra rest since they will be working overtime tonight to separate fact from fiction on this border situation.” (Read more from “Media’s Angry Response to President Trump’s Oval Office Speech Comes up Short” HERE)

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