federal

BATFE Is Looking For More Info…About You

Knuckledraggin’ My Life Away gives us yet another example of the misdirection this administration is so (in)famous for…

A recent solicitation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) reveals that the agency is seeking a “massive” online database capable of pulling up individuals’ personal information, connections and associates.

On March 28, ATF posted the notice on FedBizOpps.gov, entitled “Investigative System.”  The solicitation was updated on April 5 with a few minor changes.

The document says that the system will be utilized by staff “to provide rapid searches on various entities for example; names, telephone numbers, utility data and reverse phone look-ups, as a means to assist with investigations, and background research on people, assets and businesses.”

The system is described as a “massive online data repository system that contains a wide variety of data sources both historically and current that can be utilized in support of investigations and backgrounds.”

An overview of the solicitation states, in part:

The investigative system will allow ATF to “obtain exact matches from partial source data searches such as, incomplete social security numbers, address, VIN numbers, etc.”

The Hat Squad

I LOVE History.  Especially American.  Especially Twentieth Century – post War era.  Film(s) noir, depicting such a period.  And stuff based on real events.

The Hat Squad was a loose team of L.A.P.D. detectives, roughly from the late 40s to the early 60s.  Popular culture has used them in such films as The Hat Squad, Mullholland Falls, and L.A. Confidential.  And Stephen J. Cannell (of The Rockford Files and about 20 other shows) even pegged a short-lived television show on them.

But the real Hat Squad was something much more than lauded in West Coast crime fiction.  They were real men who lived by a code – not the code of Mulholland Falls, but not the police department service manual, either.

(excerpted from The Seattle Times, March 12, 2000)

LOS ANGELES – In this city where everything and everyone can be reinvented, true crime has long become true drama.

The Los Angeles Police Department stars in both.

The LAPD Hat Squad of the 1940s and ’50s starred four detectives in crisp fedoras and matching suits costing two weeks’ pay.

Publicly revered, the squad became known for its more secretive duties, including getting rid of Eastern mobsters seeking to expand business. According to legend, the Hat Squad discouraged visiting gangsters by meeting them at the airport and beating the wanderlust out of them.

Two of the detectives later became judges. None was ever disciplined.

“They were so feared and respected that when we’d announce such-and-such a case had been turned over to the Hat Squad, many of the suspects in those cases would voluntarily give themselves up,” department veteran Dan Cooke, now dead, told a local newspaper in 1987.

Inevitably, a movie depicted the well-dressed quartet. In 1996′s “Mulholland Falls,” Nick Nolte played its leader. In an early scene, a bloodied don is about to be tossed from a canyon ledge.

“You can’t do that, this is America,” the gangster squeaks.

“This isn’t America, Jack,” says Nolte. “This is L.A.”

And here, fact and fiction continuously blend.

I don’t think anyone had done a definitive work on them.  Perhaps they are afraid.  Just like no one will touch the FBI’s Cointelpro program with any depth.  Funny, they’ll do the NSA’s MK Ultra…?

We need to look at the triumph and tribulations of our police past to make certain history doesn’t repeat itself on a national federal scale.

Perhaps it already has.

Nanny Bloomie is at it, AGAIN!

Alphecca tells us, that yet again, pesky NannyStater Fascist NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg is back at it!

Bloomberg Launches $12 Million Dollar Gun Control Campaign

The leftist press — NBC, ABC, CBS, NPR, NY Times, et al — love to complain if the Koch brothers donate to or fund money to conservative causes. They conveniently ignore the millions that George Soros spends on liberal ones.

And, when the NRA flexes its money lobbying for what its members wants it to, gun rights, the same liberal press expresses outrage. Will they do the same when NYC Mayor Michael Blowhard outspends them (this, after just spending other millions in support of anti-gun candidates around the country in recent state elections) on anti-gun, gun control advertising? That was a rhetorical question:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced a new $12 million television ad campaign that will push senators in key states to back gun control efforts, including comprehensive background checks.

The Right To Be Left Alone used to be one of the many rights affirmed (not granted) by the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  Apparently, Mayor Bloomberg is not aware of this legal precedent.  Of course, neither is the current federal government.  (see Obamacare)

Sigh.

Mentally Ill, are we?

…or ‘just a little off’?

The Liberty Sphere discusses the move by the administration (and it’s sycophants) to more loosely define ‘mental illness’.  Not to get more folks in need dependent on the government.

But to get them declared a ‘prohibited possessor’ under federal law, with regard to firearms possession and ownership.

When Fidel Castro bullied his way into power in Cuba five decades ago, the west began to see, up close and personal, the manner in which totalitarian governments played fast and loose with the term “mentally ill.” Political dissidents were routinely rounded up, and if they were not murdered in cold blood, they were deemed insane, taken to state-run mental facilities, and given a series of electric shock treatments that rendered them imbeciles for all intents and purposes.

In like manner, the American government under Barack Obama and Democrats who run the U.S. Senate, and their allies in ultra-liberal state governments such California, are using the term “mentally ill” in a haphazard fashion, allowing them to confiscate guns.

And you don’t even have to be a patient. Merely being a family member of such a person is enough for the American Gestapo squads to seize your firearms. This news report from Bloomberg provides the details.

Quelle surprise.

h/t Nat’l Conservative Examiner

Sorry to harsh your mellow, but, this just in…

Senate Committee Approves Assault Weapons Ban

WASHINGTON –  The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved a renewed assault-weapons ban, advancing the measure to the Senate floor where it will face intense resistance from Republicans and other gun-rights supporters.

The bill was approved by the committee on a party-line, 10-8 vote. Chief sponsor, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she knows “the road is uphill” for the legislation, but sought to press her colleagues to consider the bill.

This doesn’t mean we can rest on our laurels – quite the opposite.  PLEASE keep the pressure on our Senators to separate the wheat from the chaff and NOT support this further rights-encroaching legislation!

Gun destruction in Mexico

Or, soon coming across the border…

Brought to you by enemies both foreign and domestic.

h/t We the people

Neutering the BHP, Slowly…

I truly miss my Browning High Power.  She was one of the guns I lusted after for years, and finally obtained in 1995.  Traditionally, they were always cost a little more than a 1911, but, I made out.  I purchased her from a private party who was selling her for a neighbor’s widow.  With six factory magazines.  At one of the few times in my life I actually had spare cash.

But, she was one of the collection in the gun vault when it was stolen.  Many firearms are gone, but just a few are truly missed.

So, here it is years later, and I visit Mike’s Spot, trying to live vicariously, as he tells the tale of acquiring a Mark II Belgian HP.  Mine was older and a little fancier, but, he has his.  Okay, I was little jealous.

Until I read this part:

The gun shipped with 1 formally legal NYS standard capacity magazine. I now have a 10 round, neutered mag in the gun, that has been re-neutered (neutered harder) to 7 rounds to comply with current NY SAFE 13 legislation.

Not only is the whole point of John Browning’s design to have an ergonomic machine, but it’s designed to hold 13 in the magazine, +1 in the chamber!  And one may find aftermarket mags which hold more.

This New York law is an anathema to all of our rights, and also our esthetics.  I truly hope Mike resettles in a region of the country which still follows the Constitution.  All of us deserve better than such a law.  Or its federal counterpart.

Through The Looking Glass

(apologies to Charles Dodgson…)

Borepatch reports the following:

Machine gun fire from military helicopters flying over downtown Miami, Florida!

Holy cow, black helicopters and machine guns over I-95.  If ten years ago you had told me this would be happening, I would have hand folded a tin foil hat for you.

And it’s gun owners who are crazies?  Anyone at the Miami PD even think about what this looks like?  -  Borepatch

Whatever happened to Posse Comitatus law?  I sense bad things in our future.  We now return you to your normal programming, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, or the armed men in the skies – all is well.

THE LIST

Fill Yer Hands recently blogged regarding a minor phenomena I’ve seen more and more of.  And, frankly, have heard about for years.

You’re a gun owner – why don’t you join the NRA or the SAF or some other pro-rights organization and put your money-where-your-mouth is?

Because I don’t want to be on a list.

SERIOUSLY?

You think that mouthing off in your local watering hole about the President or his policies, or buying firearms and ammunition, or prepping, or posting comments on the Internet haven’t already gotten someone’s attention?

It’s been widely reported that the ‘temporary’ NICS background check files have been (illegally) saved by the FBI, and every time a licensed gun shop goes under, they are required to ship all their filed Federal Forms 4473 to the BATFE.  We suspect there’s a huge database, although we’ve no positive proof.

How about the DHS Watch Lists when flying, or taking a train, or traveling abroad?  Or the NSA monitoring all the email traffic electronically, looking for key words like ‘guns’ in messages?

Personally, I suspect there has always been a list, and I involuntarily was added to it upon my first ‘papered’ firearm purchase.  And my ranting in this blog (and as a commenter on other blogs) about libertarianism, the Constitution, Gun Rights, Civil Liberties and various government abuses probably has made my file thicker.

But, I don’t care.  Why?  If indeed there are concerted efforts to monitor the actions and locations of possible threats (e.g. gun owners and free-thinking people) I’m probably at the head of the line.  Not only am I a gun owner and speak out about it, I’ve spoken publicly about the JFK assassination.

If there indeed IS a list, and we as a nation cross the Rubicon, I’ll never make to the camps…

(quietly removes tin-foil hat and skulks away…)

The Life and Times of Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves

Miss Cellania brings us the little-known tale of a man born a slave, who became a prodigious lawman:  Bass Reeves.

The ‘history’ we are spoon-fed doesn’t always jibe with the truth.  This guy was the real deal and escaping slavery and fathering 10 children wasn’t the half of it!

Over his 32-year career as a Deputy U.S. Marshal, Bass Reeves arrested 3,000 felons, killed 14 men, and was never shot himself. His reputation for persistence, his total fearlessness, his skills with a gun, and his ability to outsmart outlaws struck terror into lawbreakers in what we now call Oklahoma. Although other colorful characters made their way into our pop culture, Bass was the real badass of the Old West

The marshal was famous for fair-mindedness and was impossible to bribe or corrupt. In 1902 he arrested his own son, Benny, for murdering his wife (Reeves’ daughter-in-law). Benny had fled to the badlands after the crime, and no other marshal was willing to pursue him. As distasteful as the task was, Reeves brought him back, and Benny served twenty years at Leavenworth.

You should visit the link and read his whole story.

‘Johnny, we hardly knew ye…’

National Conservative Examiner reports on behind-the-scenes groundwork being laid to pass ‘new’ gun control legislation, in spite of growing opposition.

Conservatives and gun rights groups have said from the beginning that the gun ban legislation does not arise from the Newtown massacre but from an overriding, longstanding desire on the part of anti-gun politicians and activist groups to ban as many guns as possible. Massacres are thus easily used by such persons to whip up citizen frenzy, making it possible for the politicians to pass unpopular legislation that has little or nothing to do with the shootings themselves.

In this case, GOA director Larry Pratt stated that U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is secretly working with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to change Senate rules so that a simple majority of 51 votes would be all that is necessary to pass the gun bans. McCain is reportedly working with U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., to prevent the filibuster from holding up the legislation, which U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., vowed to to use to prevent any new gun ban legislation.

McCain and Levin are also working secretly to change the rules so that gun ban legislation could be easily added to any bill being considered in conference, and then when it is presented on the Senate floor it must be voted upon on an “as is” basis with no changes.

Another stealth measure McCain and Levin are attempting to weasel through the Senate is a provision that would bar any senator except for McCain and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., from offering amendments to bills coming out of conference.

These measures have the full blessing and approval of the Democratic majority, led by Reid and Levin.

Isn’t this the same John McCain who was the Republican RINO Presidential candidate in 2008, who stood along side pro-gun Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin?

And we we’re supposed to trust this guy to keep the Democrat out of office and away from our rights?

And he ‘represents’ my State, dag-nabbit!

h/t Anthony Martin, The Liberty Sphere