In a highly offensive political stunt, Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., announced Monday night in a Facebook live video that he had walked out of a moment of silence on the House floor for the victims of Sunday’s church massacre in Texas. Congressman Lieu declared that he “will not be silent” and demanded immediate action on gun control.

“My colleagues right now are doing a moment of silence in the House of Representatives chambers,” Lieu said. “I respect their right to do that and I myself have participated in many of them.”

“But I can’t do this again; I’ve been to too many moments of silences. In just my short period in Congress three of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history have occurred. I will not be silent.”

By skipping the moment of silence and declaring what he did to the whole world, Lieu instantly drew attention to himself. He took advantage of the situation to make a series of gun control demands.

“I urge us to pass reasonable gun safety legislation, including a universal background check law supported by 80 percent of Americans, a ban on assault rifles, and a ban on bump stocks,” he said.

“We need to do that. We cannot be silent. We need to act now.”

Let’s go through these one at a time, because each of these ideas is an exercise in futility.

First, there is already a background check in place that was supposed to stop the Texas church shooter. It failed. It failed because of a lack of proper law enforcement and a bloated federal bureaucracy. The shooter, Devin Patrick Kelley, was previously convicted of domestic violence. In 2012, while he was serving in the Air Force, he fractured his infant stepson’s skull and assaulted his wife.

His conviction for these terrible crimes disqualified him from legal gun ownership. But the Air Force failed to submit his records to a federal database used in background checks. So when a background check was run on Kelley, nothing came up to prevent him from buying a firearm.

A new universal background check law would not have stopped this oversight. If the federal government cannot properly enforce laws already on the books, how can anyone possibly expect the addition of new laws and a new federal database to work properly?

Second, a ban on media-named “assault rifles” like the AR-15 wouldn’t have disarmed Kelley. But it would have disarmed Stephen Willeford, the good guy with a gun who stopped Kelley, and potentially endangered more people.

In an interview with CRTV host Steven Crowder, Willeford revealed that when he confronted Kelley, who had shot up the church with an AR-15 rifle, Kelley was garbed in tactical gear, a SWAT-style helmet with a visor, and a bulletproof Kevlar vest. Willeford said Kelley was also in possession of a handgun at the time he engaged him. Willeford, armed with his own AR-15 rifle, managed to shoot Kelley in an exposed area on his side between the pieces of his Kevlar vest.

In the interview, Willeford stressed to Crowder that if he had not had his AR-15, he would not have been able to stop Kelley, and only God knows what Kelley might have done next.

“If I had run out of the house, and maybe this is a political plug or whatever, but if I had run out of the house with a pistol and faced bulletproof vests and Kevlar helmets, it might’ve been futile,” Willeford said. “I ran out with an AR-15 and that’s what he was shooting the place up with. And I hate to politicize that but that’s reality.”

Third, a ban on bump stocks is largely meaningless, as even the liberal Huffington Post figured out. Bump firing is a technique, not a weapons modification. All a bump stock does is replace the stock on a rifle to make bump firing easier to perform.

Bump stocks are an “insignificant portion of the market,” to quote the HuffPo. Banning their sale will not remove the currently legal gun accessories from the market, and as gun expert Paul Glasco of the TV show “Legally Armed America” explained, bump stocks “are not viable options when it comes to accuracy and trying to be proficient with a firearm,” and “only a jackass would use one.”

So Congressman Lieu, despicably and disrespectfully, walked out on a moment of silence for the victims of the Texas church massacre to push for gun control measures that would be utterly pointless and entirely ineffective at stopping mass shootings or saving those now dead.

All Rep. Lieu’s jackass stunt will accomplish is scoring political points with the ignorant. Shame on him. (For more from the author of “Jackass Democratic Congressman Walks out on Moment of Silence” please click HERE)

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Have major changes in forest-management practices over the past century had anything to do with the historic, devastating wildfires in Northern California?

Many successful methods of mitigating wildfires employed by U.S. Forest Service in the early 20th century were abandoned largely because of efforts by environmental activists, argued Rep. Tom Clintock on the House floor Oct. 3.

McClintock, the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal reported, contends 1970s laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act in particular have led to poor forest management.

The congressman said the laws “have resulted in endlessly time-consuming and cost-prohibitive restrictions and requirements that have made the scientific management of our forests virtually impossible.”

More than a dozen wildfires in Northern California’s wine country have burned hundreds of thousands of acres, killing dozens of people with hundreds more missing. In addition, thousands of homes and businesses have been destroyed. (Read more from “Mega-Wildfires Caused by Bad Government?” HERE)

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California flexed its political muscle Thursday, beefing up protections for undocumented immigrants under a controversial law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown that pushes back against President Trump’s policies.

Brown signed the bill to create a statewide sanctuary policy on the day Trump set as the deadline for immigrants aided by the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, to request a two-year extension before the program is phased out. Brown also signed 10 other immigration-related bills that limit the growth of detention centers, expand education services for immigrants, and extend tenant and workplace protections for undocumented people.

Brown said the new laws will ensure “hardworking people who contribute to our state are respected.” (Read more from “California Now ‘Sanctuary State'” HERE)

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State lawmakers acted Saturday to clear the last legislative hurdles to make California a “sanctuary state.”

The California Senate passed the bill early Saturday. Democrat Gov. Jerry Brown has indicated he will sign it.

Assemblyman Steven Choi, R-Irvine, who is also a first-generation immigrant from South Korea, said he came to the U.S. legally and the bill created “chaos” for a country built on law and order.

Republicans in the California Legislature remained opposed to the measure on Friday, saying it would tie the hands of law enforcement and compromise public safety.

“A lot of people talk about building a wall. This bill builds a wall between the federal government and our local partners and makes our communities less safe,” said James Gallagher, a Republican state assemblyman.

Some in law enforcement also opposed the new law.

“Our overarching concern remains that limiting local law enforcement’s ability to communicate and cooperate with federal law enforcement officers endangers public safety,” the California State Sheriffs’ Association said in a statement.

The California Values Act would forbid state and local law enforcement agencies from providing information to or acting as the deputies for federal immigration authorities. The bill also prohibits police and sheriffs’ officers from inquiring about a person’s immigration status.

The bill went through an intense amending process. The final version allows jail and prison officials to notify the federal government if they have arrested an illegal immigrant with a felony record and allows federal immigration officers to interview people in custody.

However, the law bans any local jail holding a detainee for additional jail time that would then allow federal authorities to take an illegal immigrant into custody.

The bill does include some exceptions, including suspects accused of the most violent or serious crimes.

“This bill here today helps some of us to believe that California is a safe place for immigrants, that we are a Golden State,” said Democrat Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula.

California is home to an estimated 2.3 million illegal immigrants. (For more from the author of “State Legislature OKs Law to Make California ‘Sanctuary State'” please click HERE)

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