Updated on January 17, 2019
NRA Again Dividing Gun Owners
I used to be a proud NRA member. Now I’m just a member. A Patron Life member, but just a member nonetheless. They won’t be getting another penny of mine any time in the near future.
My frustration with the NRA began in 2013 and was initially personal in nature. After my arrest in Temple for lawfully carrying my AR15 while on a hike through rural Texas (surrounded by my family’s pastures) with my son, the NRA refused to help. I was told that if my case went to appeal, they would be interested in helping with that. Well, the case went to appeal and again the NRA did nothing to assist with the case.
Not only did they passively ignore my open carry case, they actively opposed open carry in Texas. They actually created a blog post that called open carry in public “not only is it rare, it’s downright weird.” But, the NRA didn’t stop there. They attacked law abiding gun rights activists that were fighting to further 2nd amendment rights in Texas by calling the open carry rallies a “dubious practice” that is “downright scary!” Dubious?! Scary?! To be fair, the NRA retracted its ignorant ramblings, but only after gun owners revolted and began sending in their shredded membership cards. Unfortunately, anyone paying attention would have recognized that the NRA slipped when it admitted that “using guns merely to draw attention to yourself in public not only defies common sense, it shows a lack of consideration and manners. That’s not the Texas way. And that’s certainly not the NRA way.”
I only rehash the past to draw attention to the present. Despite supposedly opening their eyes to the plight of gun owners, the NRA has recently exposed it’s lack of spine in defending the 2nd amendment by pushing for bump stock and “red flag” legislation. They’ve already accomplished the bump stock ban and many states are instituting their red flag bills.
Just when I thought they had learned their lesson about open carry, they go and publish yet another article critical of open carry using worn out, baseless, unsubstantiated, and ignorant claims. Author Karen Hunter begins her piece hoping to convince us that her “objective is not to sway you from one side to other.” Then, after going through the pro/con arguments between open and concealed carry, concludes her screed with “Personally, I lean more toward the concealed-carry-always viewpoint” and launches a full-throated offense against open carry.
Before I tear into her points, let me make something clear: I don’t care HOW you carry. JUST CARRY!! How and whether you carry is your preference and everyone has their own. While I and Open Carry Texas have pushed for open carry as an option, we don’t tell people that one is better than the other because, as Ms. Hunter TRIED to do, there are pros and cons to each method. My main point of contention is that once again the NRA is trying to stigmatize open carry for all the wrong reasons.
My biggest objection to this hit piece is that she insinuates that our rights and carry preferences should be adjusted because “there are many people who aren’t anti-gun but are not educated on gun facts or laws whatsoever.” I thought the entire purpose of the NRA was to educate?! I know that’s the point of Open Carry Texas. You don’t educate people on something by restricting their access to it. You can’t teach people that driving is fun if you tell people why they shouldn’t drive or keep cars hidden.
Hunter then goes on to say she doesn’t prefer open carry because “I really don’t want to cause unneeded alarm to anyone or induce any amount of gun-related anxiety.” I’ve been open carrying for years (before open carry was legal in Texas, I OC’d in other states) and I’ve never had to worry about “inducing gun-related anxiety.” This is NOT how you fix this problem anyway. The best way to handle anxiety is to confront anxiety by exposing them to the elements that cause it.
For example, after a major motorcycle crash, many people are scared to get back on one. There is a lot of anxiety and fear involved just seeing one. However, the way to overcome that is not to hole yourself up inside your home, but to expose yourself to motorcycles. If you don’t get back on that motorcyle, you’ll always live in fear of it. Same with combat veterans. One of the ways that we overcome much of our combat anxiety is to expose ourselves to the sights and sounds of combat. When I returned from Iraq, I couldn’t watch Saving Private Ryan or other combat movies with realistic sound effects. However, I learned that if simply fight my anxiety by confronting it I could overcome it.
Instead of retreating to remote places on the 4th of July, I forced myself to go and watch fireworks displays so that I could overcome my reactions to explosions. I generally don’t have problems now because I expect loud noises during certain occasions throughout the year. Now, I do still have reactions to the unexpected, but I have learned how to deal with those anxieties and control them instead of allowing them to control me.
I usually open carry because I can’t stand inside the waistband holsters. I find them uncomfortable especially considering that my EDC is a full-sized 1911. However, as an activist, I mainly OC because I want to expose the public to the sight of a law abiding citizen with a firearm so they don’t fear them as much. Ms. Hunter may want to perpetuate the irrational fear of firearms, but I don’t. The NRA may be okay with it, but OCT is not.
I’m going to be 100% honest here: open carry is not really fear-inducing to the vast majority of Americans. Those that claim it is are lying. OC is not what causes fear; ignorance and a lack of education is. You don’t fix ignorance by placating it. You don’t educate people by withholding educational materials from them. When OC in Texas was being debated, all the libtard gun grabbers whined about this exact claim: open carry will induce fear! Hundreds of OCT members have OC’d in thousands of places throughout Texas (and others in others states, I might add) and no one has every experienced someone running away in fear. There have been complaints, but these have come from the gun haters anyway. Who cares what they think? My rights aren’t dependent on the irrational or manufactured fears of others.
Finally, Ms. Hunter conjures up the worn out myth about the “element of surprise.” Why any gun owner wants the “element of surprise” instead of the element of prevention is beyond me. When you need to “surprise” an attacker, you’re already being attacked. One can argue that appearing disarmed through concealed carry makes you just as much of a target as open carrying and making your firearm a target. I would argue the former is more likely than the latter. The overwhelming majority of criminals prefer a soft target and will be deterred by a visibly armed person. On the other hand, nearly all criminals are likely to target someone they believe isn’t armed. This is especially easy to understanding considering that, at least here in Texas, only about 4-5% of the public is licensed to carry and surely the criminals realize their odds are good.
The only thing that Ms. Hunter and the NRA accomplished with this article is once again splitting gun owners into two camps: open carriers and conceal carriers. I wish the establishment gun rights “defenders” would simply shut up about open or concealed carry and simply encourage people to carry. The article was great in presenting some reasoned pros and cons about each mode, but then defeated its entire purpose through its advocacy of one over the other.
Perhaps this wouldn’t be such a big deal to me if the NRA didn’t have such a history of attacking open carriers in the first place.
Updated on December 10, 2018
The Courts Have Turned Away from Their Constitutional Purpose
If you think that we have a wonderful criminal justice system, you’re kidding yourself. We no longer have an independent judiciary whose power is limited “to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority.” The key words here are “under the Constitution.” The Constitution dictates which laws can be passed, so that section isn’t as important. However, the Constitution doesn’t seem to be a care of a U.S. appeals court that just upheld a New Jersey law that limits the number of rounds a magazine can hold.
To summarize the opinion of the court: if bad people do bad things, you’re rights can be legislated away. Let’s break down what the judges said. There are many issues here that confirm our courts have lost their way and in many cases should be ignored. The 2-1 divided court came to several conclusions: the law does not burden the 2A’s right to self-defense “in the home”; it does not violate the 5A’s takings clause because there are hoops owners can jump through to keep their magazines; and it is not a violation of the 14A’s equal protection clause that the law recognizes that law enforcement officers are just better people than the rest of us and should therefore have more rights. Let’s break these down individually.
“New Jersey’s law reasonably fits the State’s interest in public safety and does not unconstitutionally burden the Second Amendment’s right to self-defense in the home.”
First of all, the court relied on unspecified “statistics” that point to a “160% increase in mass shootings over the prior decade.” This is a bogus way to determine the constitutionality of an unconstitutional law. The court never identified its source, nor did it define exactly what constitutes a “mass shooting.” The reason for this is because there is no accepted, legal definition of a mass shooting. As such, the meaning and definition has changed depending on the source. For example, the idiots at the Gun Violence Archive, a leftist, anti-gun website founded by a rich, leftist, anti-gun lawyer.
See, the problem is that the GVA defines a “mass shooting” so broadly that just about every shooting with multiple victims is categorized as one. This includes gang and drug violence or even shootouts between rivals. However, in 2013, a federal law identified a “mass shooting” as “3 or more killings in a single incident.” Even this definition is problematic because it makes the assumption that a gang shootout at midnight over a turf war or a drug deal gone bad is the same as a deranged sociopath who enters an office and slaughters a bunch of people. Anyone that isn’t reliant upon pushing an agenda can easily see these aren’t connected. The only thing that is consistent is the type of weapon used.
Even uber-leftist website Mother Jones disputes the numbers frequently quoted from the GVA. While the GVA claims that there are more mass shootings than there are days in a year, MJ has that number at around a dozen per year. The only 160% increase in mass shootings has been a 160% increase in redefining the definition. This is hardly a way to determine – as the courts should be doing – whether something is constitutional. The courts findings are nothing more than regurgitated, anti-gun talking points using flawed and discredited sources.
The court is also attempting to convey the idea that the 2A only protects your right to keep and bear arms “in the home.” By including those three words, the court is pushing the narrative that there is no right outside the home to keep and bear arms. Nowhere in the 2A do the words “in the home” appear. It says a right to keep and bear arms and the fact that the founders didn’t just keep firearms in the home for home defense is proof that this was never their intent. The law certainly does burden the 2A right – in the home or otherwise – because it limits me as to the extent of my self-defense. Assuming I am a “one shot, one killer” gun owner, the law limits me to defending against a group of ten thugs. What if I’m attacked by 11? What if I miss once or more often, which is natural under duress, especially to those that aren’t as well trained as I am?
Here’s what the court is saying here: you only have a right to self-defense in your own home up to a certain arbitrary amount. Beyond that amount, the court essentially went mute. Either I have a right to self-defense or I don’t. What difference does it make if I choose to defend myself with a 10-round magazine or a 100-round magazine if I’m defending myself? This is another hypocritical factor the court missed. They use criminal activity to determine the limits of lawful self-defense. I understand laws to prohibit or prosecute criminal activity, but that should never have a bearing on lawful self-defense. This is no difference than a state limiting me to the type of car I can drive because a particular model is used more in bank robberies. I’m not a bank robber, so my choice of car shouldn’t be limited despite the fact that I COULD use it to rob a bank if I were predisposed to do so. Likewise, since I’m not a mass shooter, I shouldn’t be limited to what I can “lawfully” possess as a gun owner.
From Politico:
Since the mid-2000s, the incidence of mass public shootings on a per capita basis has been a bit higher than it was in the preceding 10 years. But the rates over the past 10 years are no higher than in the late 1980s and early ’90s, when the frequency of mass public shootings led to the creation of policies designed to address violence in schools and workplaces. Most notably, the growing number of high-profile mass public shootings in that era helped bring about the 1994 enactment of the federal assault weapons ban, which was allowed to expire in 2004.
They also wisely note that when the court relies upon statistics that rely upon rates, the conclusions can be misleading. A single murder in a state like Alaska with 739,795 people will produce a profoundly larger rate than a single murder in a state like California with 39.54 million people. The raw numbers are not much different today when it comes to gun violence than they were in the late sixties, but today there are over 326 million Americans versus just 202.7 million in 1969. The rates haven’t changed much at all.
The court determined that the 2A is protected because it only “places a minimal burden on lawful gun owners.” In other words, “it’s okay to violate the constitution as long as it’s just a little.” So, state could easily ban some religions, as long as there are other options for people to attend to church…somewhere. A press can be free, as long as it reports what the state determines is okay. It’s okay to quarter a minimal number of troops in our homes and not offend the 3A. You have a right to due process…as long as you are only accused of certain crimes or you’re at least 5’6″ tall. I know it sounds crazy, but logically this is the path it leads to.
“The law also does not violate the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause because it does not require gun owners to surrender their magazines but instead allows them to retain modified magazines or register firearms that have magazines that cannot be modified.”
There are several ways the law provides for owners of magazines with a capacity to hold more than ten round to become “compliant” with the law. Owners can either modify their magazines to accept ten rounds or less, destroy firearms or magazines that can’t be modified, register the firearms or magazines that cannot be modified, or transfer them to an “individual or entity entitled to own or possess it,” likely in a state that actually values freedom. They can also surrender the items to law enforcement as a last resort.
The 5A says that government shall not allow “private property [to] be taken for public use, without just compensation,” but the law in question in this case does not provide for a single penny to owners who are being required to modify, destroy, or surrender their property. In fact, the court completely ignored the “just compensation” clause. Additionally, the 5A only allows for such takings “for public use,” another clause the court ignored. Simply forcing once law-abiding citizens to turn in their private property because a bunch of politicians put words together on a piece of paper demanding it does not mesh with the constitution.
The court relied on testimony from researcher Gary Kleck and Everytown for Gun Safety (EGS), but only quoted EGS refutation of Kleck’s self-defense gun use (SDGU) figures in which he found that most SDGU involved fewer than ten rounds. It completely ignored that they also found there were many SDGU involving more than ten rounds. Despite this fact, the court simply found that those that needed more than ten rounds for self-defense were somehow less worthy of protection than those only needing fewer than ten rounds. By its own admission, the court “concluded that the testimony of certain experts (the ones, of course, that were on the side of the 2A) was “of little help in its analysis….[because] their testimony failed to clearly convey the effect this law will have on reducing mass shootings in New Jersey or the extent to which the law will impede gun owners from defending themselves.”
The court found that “while a ban on LCMs (large capacity magazines) does not restrict the amount of ammunition or number of magazines an individual may purchase…without access to LCMs, a shooter must reload more frequently.” This line of thinking is ludicrous and immoral. If most shootings, as the court found through its testimony, involve just 2-3 bullets, why limit it to just ten? If they can limit to ten, why not one? Why not 0? If the goal is not to determine constitutionality, but to determine what will kill fewer people or what will take shooters longer to kill the same number of people, then the court’s logic would justify a total ban on guns. It would also justify banning every single semi-automatic weapon. It could justify banning people in the future from owning multiple magazines or possessing more than a pre-determined amount of ammunition. It would justify even owning more than one gun!
“Finally, because retired law enforcement officers have training and experience that makes them different from ordinary citizens, the law’s exemption that permits them to possess magazines that can hold more than ten rounds does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.”
In a footnote on page 13 of the ruling, the court stated that “law enforcement officers use certain firearms not regularly used by members of the military and use them in a civilian, non-combat environment.” In the footnote to this statement, the court wrote, “because their duties require access to LCMs, active military members and active law enforcement officers are exempt from the ban.”
If magazines carrying more than ten rounds isn’t necessary for self-defense, as the court and the state allege, then it’s statement that “New Jersey law enforcement officers regularly carry LCMs…and along with their retired counterparts, are trained and certified in the use of firearms.” Well, if they are banned, why do they need them? Surely, it isn’t for self-defense because these types of magazines “are not necessary or appropriate for self-defense” by the courts own admission. Ostensibly, the police have guns for self-defense and defense of others, right?
Once again, the court here contradicts itself. In United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), specifically noted that the constitution protect “arms supplied by [the people] and of the kind in common use at the time.” The most common firearms in use at this time are those that hold and/or are capable of firing more than ten rounds. Since it is the responsibility (and right) of the people to be armed and the courts have already determined that those arms are to be supplied by the people and “of the kind in common use,” the New Jersey law should have been found unconstitutional by an impartial court. The court had to have read this case because they referenced it when citing that “[t]he possession of arms also implied the possession of ammunition” in determining that “magazines are arms” since they hold the ammunition. That was the extent of the dynamic duo’s (the NJ decision was a 2-1 split decision) use of this key case law.
But, the law doesn’t just exempt active law enforcement. It also exempted retired law enforcement officers. Why? Because of their “‘extensive and stringent training’ and experience ‘confronting unique circumstances that come with being a police officer,'” which are “different from, and hence not similarly situated to, other residents.” Really? Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t cops investigate crimes that have already occurred? Before a cop puts himself in danger of confronting a violent murderer, hasn’t the common citizen already been confronted by this same individual? Before a cop confronts a domestic abuser, hasn’t that person already abused someone violently? The only difference between the public and the police is that the police are paid to confront the people who already confronted the public. Therefore, we should be afforded the same means of self-defense as the police.
As for the “extensive and stringent training” argument, what about those civilians who never served in law enforcement who are more extensively and stringently trained than them? If the benchmark is having “extensive and stringent training,” why wouldn’t that apply to society as a whole instead of just certain government agents. I’ve met many people who have exponentially more and better training than what law enforcement receives. Even within law enforcement, having a badge doesn’t mean your are “extensively and stringently trained.” Some officers serve admin roles while others are on SWAT teams. Under this logic, doesn’t that mean that SWAT officers should have more rights than admin or traffic cops? And who decides what constitutes “extensive and stringent training?”
The fact that the court concluded this isn’t a violation of the equal protection clause is laughable.
The courts claims to have “carefully consider[ed] all of the evidence and the parties’ arguments,” but admits that it dismissed research it simply didn’t want to agree with. If this ruling isn’t overturned, this is the precedent it is setting.
Posted on November 24, 2018
The Self-Imposed Migrant “Crisis”
The moment that it was discovered a group of migrants planned to march (ie: drive) to the United States for asylum, we warned that they weren’t welcome here. In fact, the only people that want them here are those that are hoping on their illegal votes and abhor the rule of law – Democrats.
Over the past several weeks, every prediction about what these migrants would bring with them has come true: disease, crime, violence. Now that the migrants are in Tijuana, we’re seeing firsthand what their presence in our communities would look like. They come with no money, no skills, and nothing to offer. However, they do come looking for and expecting everyone else to take care of them.
The problem is that for a group of people who demands that someone else do what they should be doing themselves, they sure do have high expectations. For example, while Mexicans complains that their presence is costing the city of Tijuana $25,000 per day to feed, it’s never good enough. The migrants aren’t happy with their food, their living conditions, or their prospects.
This is all self-imposed. The migrants knew they weren’t welcome. They were told repeatedly by the government, the media, and the people around them. They didn’t care. Theoretically, they are fleeing from despicable conditions of crime and corruption, yet they went to Tijuana – the fifth most dangerous city in the world, according to Mexican think tank. The reason they went hundreds of miles out of their way to California as opposed to coming up to the US border at Texas is because they know that California is more friendly to criminals and illegal immigrants. They also know that Texans are well armed and will defend their country and state.
Trump was right about their presence being an invasion. 100% right. They are fleeing violence for a safer place to live and a job; Mexico offered that. They’re fleeing their country to help with Obama’s continuing goal of “fundamentally transforming America” (no, I’m not saying Obama is behind the caravan). Who flees a country they don’t like while flying it’s flag? If you think America is so great, why are you saying that when you get here you’re going to somehow depose Trump. You can’t expect to be welcomed with open arms into the country when you’re calling for the overthrow of its civilian leader!
Additionally, many independent journalists who are embedded with the migrants have exposed that the migrants are really attracted to our free social welfare programs. Let’s face it, if these people are let into this country, they’re going to be a drain on our society. They are going to suck down our taxpayer funded programs and services because they aren’t entrepreneurs and job creators. They will suppress wages by taking low-paying, manual labor jobs. Because of the low income levels, they won’t pay any taxes either. Very few of them even speak English, which is going to create greater complications within our borders in law enforcement and social discourse.
All one needs to see and hear about what kind of “gracious” guests these migrants plan to be has recently been revealed. It appears that since the illegals aren’t getting their way because we’re enforcing our immigration laws, they’re going to CREATE chaos through “human stampedes.” Their plan to overwhelm our defenses and system and take what they want since it isn’t being given to them.
Do we really need more people in this country who have no respect for our legal system? What good does it do us to bring in people who will just take what they want if it isn’t given to them freely? The migrants have made no qualms about resorting to violence to achieve their objectives. We’ve already seen how violent they can be in Mexico when obstacles are placed in their way despite being given options to their benefit.
Americans need to be paying close attention. If these guys (they aren’t women and children) think they can ram their way into our country, then Americans need to stand up to them. If they think they can outnumber us, then we need to outnumber them. The problem is that there isn’t much that can be done within the borders of Kalifornia because if you defend yourself, your state, and your country against these invaders, YOU will be treated as the enemy and problem. Californians also have virtually no right to self-defense in their state. The Kalifornia poliTICKians have made sure of that.
The Mexican government is now complaining about all the problems the caravan has caused, but they are responsible for it. They should have done what we are doing now and secured their borders. They should have enforced the rule of law against these South American Hispanics the same way they enforce the rule of law against North American white people. If an American pulled a tenth of the crap the migrants are pulling, we’d be locked in a third world Mexican jail being fed dirty water and stale tortilla shells.
If Mexico wants to solve the migrant problem, the solution is clear: start deporting them back home immediately.
Updated on October 15, 2018
Houston Police Department STILL Getting It Wrong on Open Carry
Over the past few years, I’ve come to a sad conclusion about the state of government and liberty in Texas. If you want to know about traffic law, domestic violence, or issuing warrants, ask a cop. If you want to know about just about any other aspect of law, ask nearly anyone else – especially when it comes to gun laws. That’s not a dig on them because it’s impossible for anyone to know every single law on the books. Texas alone has tens of thousands of laws. The problem is that when cops don’t know something, they simply make it up or enforce what they believe SHOULD be the law. I can’t count how many times I’ve been at an event and told by a cop that I can’t do something and when I try to actually show the cop the actual law, he/she refuses to even read it. The ego is too big. Thankfully, not all are like this, but an uncomfortable number are.
I’ve been educating the public and government officials (including law enforcement) for years about the limitations and extent of the law as it relates to firearms in Texas. Our gun laws are scattered throughout various codes, ranging from the Penal Code to Administrative Code to Education Code and Government Code. It’s a very tangled web and makes getting new legislation passed difficult because if you remove a section from one code and not another, you could effectively have accomplished nothing even if your bill passes.
However, the Texas open carry law is not that difficult to understand. Yet, despite the straight forward nature of the law related to the limitations on government and duties of license holders, there is still confusion – or outright willful ignorance – about what cops can and can’t do and what license holders have to do. I’ve written about this issue once already here, so I won’t rehash it verbatim. But, it greatly bothers me that there are still police departments that not only believe they have authority that they don’t, but try to convince the public that they have this authority and blatantly act against their rights. They claim to support gun rights, but will use any excuse to harass you for exercising them.
On the Houston Police Department’s website, there is a Q&A about the “new” open carry law. This appears to have been done under the old chief, Chief McClelland, but the fact that citizens who go to the site and type “open carry” into the city’s search engine is still a problem since the new chief hasn’t fixed it. Inquiring minds will come across this tidbit of false information:
20. If an officer sees me openly carrying a handgun in a shoulder or belt holster, is that officer legally able to ask me for proof that I have a handgun license?
Yes, since constitutional carry did not pass, the officer is legally permitted to ask you for your license. Also, when you get your handgun license, you are instructed that if a police officer asks you for your license, you must provide it.
I’m not sure what constitutional carry has to do with this response, but it’s irrelevant. It doesn’t matter that constitutional passed or didn’t pass. Open carry, where legal as it is in Texas, does not constitute probable cause. When the open carry law was being passed, I had already done my homework and knew that cops demanding ID could be a potential issue here. Other states that passed open carry had to go back and pass additional laws that specifically tell cops not to do what the constitution says they can’t do and the courts have reminded them not to do – demand ID for simply carrying a firearm (again, see my previous post for all the legal details on this). So, I worked closely with several legislators, notably Senator Don Huffines and Representative Harold Dutton, to attach an amendment to the HB910 (the open carry law) that would SPECIFICALLY prevent law enforcement from harassing people simply for open carrying absent any other evidence of criminal conduct. In other words, if the sole reason for the stop and ID was because of open carry and nothing else, the amendment told cops to slow their role and leave peaceful citizens alone.
The new Houston police chief, Art Acevedo, immediately mobilized his statist law enforcement buddies and they flooded the legislature with phone calls demanding that the amendment be defeated. All of the law enforcement unions and associations piled on and threatened lawmakers to kill the 4th amendment protection bill. They actually fought against your right to be “secure in your person, papers, and effects!” They WANTED the ability to harass law abiding gun owners who were minding their own business. Now, I know that some people reading this are a bit more brainwashed that I am and are already thinking to themselves, “if you have nothing to hide, why not just show the ID?!” I always respond with, “if I have nothing to hide, they have no reason to harass me.” Why should I surrender my 4th amendment rights to exercise my 2nd amendment rights?! That makes no sense at all. The 2nd amendment is not a subordinate right.
Let me continue breaking down the HPD response. “[T]he officer is legally permitted to ask you for your license.” I don’t dispute that. The officer is legally permitted to ask you out on a date too. He’s legally permitted to ask you to do just about anything absent illegal conduct. Asking is one thing; demanding is another. Yes, he can legally ask you for your license. The question then becomes, “do you have to provide it?” HPD seems to think so.
“Also, when you get your handgun license, you are instructed that if a police officer asks you for your license, you must provide it.” This is where HPD goes off the rails. I do know – because I get phone calls, emails, and social media messages ALL THE TIME about this – that there are LTC instructors out there putting out false information that license holders are required to provide their LTC if a cop asks to see it. They point to Texas Government Code 411.205 as their evidence, but this is false. Nowhere in that law does it say a cop can demand an LTC (or even ask for it). It says, “when a magistrate or a peace officer demands that the license holder display identification, the license holder shall display both the license holder’s driver’s license or identification certificate issued by the department and the license holder’s handgun license.”
Let’s break this down…again. To anyone with a high school diploma who graduated legitimately, it is crystal clear that nowhere in this section does it say “when a peace officer demands that the license holder display his license.” It says, “when…a peace officer demands…identification.” It also doesn’t say, “when a peace officer ASKS for identification.” Asking and demanding are two very distinct and different legal terms. Asking denotes a choice while demanding denotes a requirement. It also says “when” an officer demands that identification, which every cop SHOULD know they can only do when they have legal authority – when placing someone under arrest. An arrest requires PC. Open carry is not PC because the courts have already ruled on this.
Finally, basically once a police officer has been given the legal authority to demand something from a private citizen (ie: a crime has been committed), only then does 411.205 kick in. This actually only applies to license holders since citizens not carrying a firearm are not required to actually “display” identification. The average citizen, under Penal Code 38.02, is only required to provide name, address, or birthdate when placed under arrest. They don’t actually have to display anything. 411.205 places a more specific requirement on license holders once the 38.02 failure to identify statute kicks in. If a license holder is armed and a peace officer has authority to demand identification, license holders actually have to DISPLAY identification – they can’t just verbalize it.
That said, the legislature also remove any criminal penalty for failure to display an LTC, so even if they have authority to demand it, failure to do so is not a crime. It’s merely a, “hey, slave, show them your LTC. But, if you don’t, meh.” Of course, some police departments have doubled down on their statist power trips by reporting the LTC holder to the state trying to get their licenses administratively revoked, but there is no provision in the law for suspending or revoking a license for failure to display it. I have recording of a phone call with a DPS trooper in the LTC department saying this exact same thing. There’s nothing they can do, but some departments get butthurt over it.
Anyway, there you have it. Once again, I have to take time out of picking my toenails to contact another police department and formally put them on notice about their illegal policies and misinformation.
Updated on October 15, 2018
The Reality of Violence
I’m not a violent person. I abhor violence. Now, that doesn’t mean that I think there is a place for violence. Quite the contrary. I am whole-hearted believer in using overwhelming force in response to violence. Peace through superior firepower, to put it another way. I don’t believe that violence is EVER legitimate except in defense from violence. I know that sounds weird coming from a guy that was involved in the Iraq invasion, but that was also 15 years ago (sheesh! Has it been that long?!) Combat has a way of getting people to see things a bit differently.
Since Donald Trump was elected I’ve witnessed firsthand the rise of militant communism and leftists known as Antifa. Here in Texas, we also have a group of commies called the Red Guard that are based largely out of Austin. Personally, I have no problem with people pushing ignorant and stupid political ideologies. It’s important to know who is expendable in the next civil war or major catastrophe. However, instead of merely pushing communism under the guise of “anti-fascism,” these groups are getting violent and people are getting hurt. Thankfully, in the aggregate, the people getting hurt the most are the antifa morons themselves, but people are still getting hurt.
I was tagged in a post where the following video was shared and it precipitated this blog post.
This is the kind of violence I can get behind. If antifa wants to puff out their birdchests (or, in this case, their oversized pannus) and get violent, I’m fully supportive of beating them into a coma. I believe that the only language that communists fully comprehend is strength, resolve, and violence. When antifa gets violent, we need to get more violent. We need to ensure, however, that we aren’t provoking that violence. We should exercise our rights and they should exercise theirs. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t respond to the rest of their nonsense.
I believe that there are different levels of violence and not all of them are kinetic. For example, I consider it violence when a group of people is trying to hold a rally, protest, or other first-amendment protected activity and another group of opposition does everything they can to drown it out. The left is very good at using sound to overpower conservatives and the right. I consider that violence and would not object to kinetic violence being used as a response to sonic violence. If people are blocking my ability to freely travel, I believe in running them over. They are forcefully preventing me from exercising my right to move about unmolested. This is a lesser form of violence that deserves a response in self-defense, especially when those actions could potentially affect my ability to put food on the table or pay my bills.
And when people like those in the video get physical, our response should overwhelming and absolute. I guarantee you this antifa coward who thought he was a badass will think twice next time. Perhaps he will rethink getting violent without a lot of support, which means that the next response should be even more overwhelming. As more of these idiots get their skulls crushed in, fewer others will feel the need to get froggy in the future. Thus, violence will create peace in the long run. The less blustering among that crowd will see the stitches of their more aggressive friends and decide not to get involved – or even just to stop going.
The problem with the right is that we tend to be more religious and therefore we tend to condemn violence at all costs. Our side believes that street fighting is uncivilized and unproductive. Often, we believe that even protesting is offensive and useless. We prefer to simply turn the other cheek instead of responding. We believe this is the Christian thing to do. Unfortunately, that perspective isn’t entirely accurate. The Christian thing to do is to avoid violence as initiatory; not just to avoid violence. Sure, we should try to “turn the other cheek,” but we shouldn’t be cowards. I doubt highly that Christ intended for his followers to be victims their entire lives and simply allow people to abuse them without consequences. Turning the other cheek, in my view, means that we try to avoid violence or vindication if possible. When Christ saw the Temple being defiled He “cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves.” If someone is beating you with a pole, no one in their right mind should believe that Christ believes you should turn your head and not stop the beating.
It is my sincere desire that people would just disagree with each other. If you want to counter-protest, do it!! However, no one has a right to use their free speech to shut down the free speech of others. My rights end where another person’s rights begin. This is why when I go to a leftist rally, my intent is not to be loud and shout down the opposition, but to stand as an opposing voice. Sure, I’ll occasionally make a loud statement in response to something stupid being said, but I won’t in any way try to shut down their rally or make it to where they can’t be heard. They have a right to be heard just as I do. I’m always willing to sit down and talk peacefully with people with whom I disagree – including antifarce morons. When those people want to resort to violence, I’m always more than willing, capable, and excited to use violence in response. I love violence when used in self-defense. It’s cathartic and tends to force others to be peaceful all of the sudden when confronted with it.
No one should accept or tolerate antifa and far left violence. No one should accept or tolerate far right violence either. Violence in all forms (except self-defense) should never be condoned. I will never throw the first punch, but I’m incredibly accepting of throwing the last one. And it won’t be just one punch. I will stop when I believe you will no longer be a threat to me in any way. The solution is very simple. If you don’t want to go home bloody or end up in a hospital (or worse) simply be nice. I’m not a violent person, but I’m not completely opposed to using violence.
Posted on October 11, 2018
Beto O’Rourke Is Offensive to Gun Rights
Here in Texas, a major fight is at hand for Texas senator. Hoping for a second term, Senator Ted Cruz is being challenged by El Paso US Representative Robert “Beto” O’Rourke. While the media has definitely made it seem as if this is going to be a close race, I don’t buy it. Beto touts his accomplishment of visiting all 254 Texas counties as somehow a basis for defeating Cruz, but he refuses to recognize that nearly all of his policies are completely out of line with most Texans. What works in a liberal, border town like El Paso, doesn’t work in the rest of the state.
Perhaps his most abhorrent ideology is his disdain for the second amendment. Now, Beto isn’t a huge idiot and recognizes that Texas is a gun friendly state, so he’s having to craft his anti-gun messaging in a way that he thinks will fool most Texans come November 6th. You can always tell when a politician doesn’t support gun rights because they begin their discussion on the topic with, “I support the second amendment, but…” or “I’m a gun owner, but…” I call these kinds of 2A supporters as “butters.”
One only need look at his own website (which I refuse to link to – Google is your friend) to see his absolute and total disdain for the 2A. Nowhere on his page does he say or push anything that would PROTECT your right to keep and bear arms. Every single policy agenda he lists is, in fact, a restriction on some aspect of the 2A.
Texas has a proud and honorable tradition of responsible gun ownership for hunting, sport, self-defense, and collecting. Like so many Texans, Beto learned to safely handle and shoot a gun at a young age — taught by his Uncle Raymond who was a sheriff’s deputy and a jail captain. That shared heritage — that uniquely Texas experience — means that our state should lead the way in preserving the Second Amendment while working together to ensure people can live without fear of gun violence in their communities.
We should:
Require background checks for all gun sales to ensure that firearms only get into the hands of responsible, law-abiding individuals.
This means finally closing the gun show, online, and boyfriend loopholes.
Stop selling weapons of war and high-capacity magazines to ensure that firearms designed to kill as effectively and efficiently as possible on the battlefield aren’t used in our schools, our streets, our churches, and our concerts.
Block the erosion of Texas’ license to carry standards by opposing Concealed Carry Reciprocity, which would force Texas to allow anyone from states with weak to nonexistent conceal carry laws to disregard our own public safety requirements.
Fully support federal research on gun violence so that we can better understand and address its root causes.
Let’s break this down in a constitutional sense. First of all, Beto is running for a FEDERAL, senatorial position. So, the federal law and constitution applies. The 2A is clear that the right to keep and bear arms “shall not be infringed.” Every law in any way altering or restriction firearms is an infringement.
First of all, Beto says that “our state should lead the way in preserving the Second Amendment while working together to ensure people can live without fear of gun violence in their communities.” There is no authority whatsoever in the constitution that allows for Congress to infringe on the right to keep and bear arms except to protect someone’s irrational fear of “gun violence.” This line of thinking is baseless when applied to literally any other form of emotional advocacy. If it’s the governments job to help alleviate people’s “fears,” then why do aren’t we severely restricting 18-wheelers. I would like to not live in fear of being run off the road every time I have to pass a big truck on the highway, especially while it’s raining. I would like to not live in fear of being murdered by a cop or dying as a result of medical malpractice. Should we ban 18-wheelers, cops, and doctors be banned because there are people who fear them? Traffic accidents are the leading cause of death in this state by a wide margin. And exponentially more people die from medical malpractice!
Gun violence is a false term. It’s invented to push an agenda. There is no such thing as “gun violence.” There is only violence. The means to engage in that violence may vary, but violence is violence. It’s no difference being murdered or assaulted with a gun than with a fist, hammer, or knife. Violence is violence. The problem with these big government statists is that they recognize that controlling guns is the only way to truly control the people. This is obvious when you consider that every single gun control law conveniently exempts government officials from its grasp. Why is it okay for a cop to carry into a bar or courtroom, but no other law abiding citizen especially considering that licensed gun owners are 7 times less likely to commit a crime than cops are? Why is okay for a cop, active or retired, to carry in all 50 states, but not you? Because government wants a monopoly on the use of force and they realize that as long as you possess the means to resist their tyranny they can’t be tyrannical.
Next, Beto wants to “require background checks for all gun sales to ensure that firearms only get into the hands of responsible, law-abiding individuals.” We have background checks and we have laws that already prevent firearms from getting into the hands of irresponsible, law-breaking individuals. Felons aren’t allowed to have guns and they don’t purchase their guns legally. Criminals won’t suddenly start performing background checks on each other before each transaction. They certainly won’t undergo a background check before stealing a firearm. That said, I oppose background checks anyway. When we give government the power to determine who is “responsible,” what’s to stop them from determining no one is responsible – except government officials? If you want to disarm “law abiding” citizens, all they need to do is create more laws that turn law-abiding citizens into criminal out of thin air. For example, should UBC laws pass and two law-abiding citizens buy a gun from each other without a background check, those two people are now magically criminals. States have created felons out of thin air by merely passing laws regulating what types of guns or accessories the citizens can possess that previously they owned without a single issue. All background checks do is identify who is buying guns so that when the government is ready to ban them, they know who to go after. We’ve already seen it happen in California, New Jersey, Maryland, and New York. You don’t make society safer by making it harder for law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms in self-defense.
“This means finally closing the gun show, online, and boyfriend loopholes.” This is where Beto should be immediately disqualified from public office. He isn’t even intelligent enough to understand the very topic he has a position on. It’s illegal to purchase a gun online. Firearms cannot be shipped to a home under any circumstances “legally.” The “gun show loophole” is another farce and is simply the argument statists make to push for more control. The government doesn’t like when it can’t track who has a gun and frankly the government SHOULDN’T know who has a gun. I prefer to keep the government guessing so that they don’t get froggy although the fact that they do know there are over 310 million firearms in the hands of Americans is surely one reason government keeps itself largely in check. A Bureau of Justice Statistics – which the gun grabbers love to quote – survey of prison inmates found that less than one percent of the firearms used by felons were acquired at gun shows. Only about 1 our to 122 background checks, far less than 1 percent, are denied a purchase. If our government was serious about “ensuring people can live without fear of gun violence in their communities,” then of the approximately 80,000 applications denied annually, why are only about 40 of them prosecuted? Don’t even get me started on what the “boyfriend loophole” is.
“Stop selling weapons of war and high-capacity magazines to ensure that firearms designed to kill as effectively and efficiently as possible on the battlefield aren’t used in our schools, our streets, our churches, and our concerts.” Once again, Beto displays his ignorance about the purpose of the 2nd amendment with this statement on many different levels. First, he fails to define what a “weapon of war” or “high-capacity magazine” is. There’s a reason for this. Muskets are weapons of war; or they were once. The M1 Garand and Mossberg shotgun are weapons used in war, but so are the Beretta and 1911 handguns. The evolution of firearms has always followed along the lines of military technology and one person’s “weapon of war” is another person’s hunting or sporting weapon. But, that’s all irrelevant distraction. “Weapons of war” are explicitly what the 2A protects. The “right of the people to keep and bear arms” is a direct qualifier to the right to “a well-regulated militia.” You can’t have one without the other. A militia is designed for times of war and the people who comprise the militia (“all men capable of bearing arms“) should have access to the kinds of firearms needed to fight it. Tench Coxe in 1788 answered the question about “who are the militia?” this way: “Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom? Congress shall have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American … The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the People.” When the government is the only entity with access to “weapons of war” what do the people do when/if the government goes to war with them?! That’s the exact question Beto hopes you never hear or have to answer. He’s counting on your ignorance. Couldn’t we also argue that starvation, taxation, tariffs, and words are also “weapons of war?”
“Block the erosion of Texas’ license to carry standards by opposing Concealed Carry Reciprocity, which would force Texas to allow anyone from states with weak to nonexistent conceal carry laws to disregard our own public safety requirements.” This is about the dumbest thing I’ve heard Beto say. The problem with this line of thinking is that it treats the 2nd amendment as a second class right. I doubt very much that Beto would support states putting greater restrictions on free speech or religion, but he would agree that those rights are universal throughout the nation. Likewise, my right to be free from having troops quartered in my home; being secure in my person, papers, and effects; afforded due process; the ability to vote; and other rights covered in the Constitution are uniformly accepted throughout the country, so why not the 2A right to keep and bear arms. Setting aside the unconstitutional nature of licensing to begin with, do I not have the same right to self-defense in Florida as I do in California or Alaska? Is the Constitutional not the same one in each state? I can’t imagine Beto supporting states requiring out-of-state visitors to only visit certain churches (or not attend church at all), but that’s literally the equivalent of his line of thinking here. He believes that states should be allowed to discriminate against people’s 2A rights geographically, but no other right. Can you imagine if Georgia banned any out of state protesters from exercising their 1st amendment rights? To these statists, the 2A is a subordinate and, therefore, expendable right when compared to others. I don’t hear him complaining that every state in the Union is required to recognize every other states’ driver licenses despite different requirements among to acquiring one. So, while I don’t believe licenses should be required in any capacity, the fact they are should be accepted by every state. I have just as much of a right to defend myself in Austin, Texas, as I do in New York, New York, so why shouldn’t my Texas license be recognized just because they have more infringements on obtaining one?
“Fully support federal research on gun violence so that we can better understand and address its root causes.” I can’t find this authority anywhere in Article I of our constitution. Besides, we don’t need to spend tax money on this research. There are already organizations that do this. The problem is that statists don’t like the findings which inevitably fail to support their agendas. They can’t control the narrative as long as they don’t control the research. This is what Beto really wants: to control the data so he can manipulate it to push his anti-gun agenda.
Look, owning a gun or growing up with a gun doesn’t make you pro-gun or pro-gun rights. It just means that you support YOUR right to own a gun, but no one else’s. It means you support the right to own what YOU own, not what the rest of feel comfortable with. The root problem with most liberal statists is that they project their own insecurities on everyone else. They don’t trust themselves with guns, so they can’t trust everyone else. They assume that the rest of society is as unhinged as they are and that is why they want to control them. Liberals are violent, so they assume everyone else is violent as well. When you’re a criminal yourself, you assume everyone else is just as bad as you are to a liberal. It all boils down to projection; not safety.
Updated on May 8, 2018
Skarr Body Armor Review
Last weekend, I had the opportunity to defend gun rights and freedom at a rally in Dallas. For some reason, I’ve received an uptick in violent threats since my arrest in Olmos Park. The statists aren’t happy with people who stand up instead of kneel down.
It was a beautiful day full of sunshine and a light breeze that eased the trapped heat within the concrete jungle of downtown. I had been looking into getting some concealed body armor after my buddy James Everard showed me what he typically wears and made some suggestions on what to look for. After being unlawfully tased in the back, I quickly realized that I need something that is not only bullet resistant, but stab resistant.
As I began my search, I quickly narrowed the field down to two companies: Skarr Armor’s SPV-06W vest and SafeGuard Armor’s Ghost covert armor. I had several specifications that I was looking for:
-
level IIIA (up to 44 Mag)
stab proof
concealable (as much as possible)
lighweight and breathable
affordable
Ultimately, I went with the Skarr Armor. The Ghost Armor was nearly twice as expensive as Skarr and offered the same protection. So, for the first time, I suited up and made my way to Dallas. I decided to go ahead and just wear it the whole way up so that I didn’t have to fuss with it in the parking lot and also just to feel it out for comfort.
It wasn’t restrictive and I didn’t even really notice I was wearing it. One of my worries was that because I have a shorter torso than probably most people was that it would ride up while I was sitting down. I didn’t notice that being the case at all. When I got to the parking lot, I got out and grabbed all my gear and headed towards the rally.
It was a warm day and I was sweating, but I didn’t feel overheated in the slightest wearing the armor. In fact, I just felt the normal heat that I think everyone else was feeling. Having worn body armor for many years, I know what discomfort feels like while wearing armor in the heat and I didn’t experience that. I have worn my plate carrier at rallies outside of my clothes and felt oppressively overheated, but not with this. It was hot, but I wasn’t uncomfortable. Again, I didn’t even realize I was wearing it. A few perceptive people asked me about the armor, but others didn’t notice until someone else mentioned it. The most obvious places you can see were around the neck area where the bulged out a little probably because of my enormous pecs (/sarcasm).
Thankfully, none of the threats panned out this weekend and I survive another day. I hope I never have to test out the protection-level claims of the armor since I’m not going to shoot up my only only concealable body armor to find out if it works. I can barely afford body armor as it is, but I definitely can’t afford one to keep and one to test. I’ll be wearing the armor at other events as well to get more of a feel for it and see how it holds up over time and increasingly higher temperatures.
You can get the same body armor at the Skarr Armor website here (no, I don’t get a finder’s fee or commission if you buy any). I highly recommend it so far. I did a LOT of walking that day wearing bags and a rifle as well as walking through a crowded NRA convention floor without feeling bulky or burdened.
You can find some great deals on outerwear tactical plate carriers and ballistic armor by visiting this blog’s parent site here.
Posted on April 6, 2018
Drones a Viable Counter-terrorism Tool That Must Be Combined with Human Know-How
Last month, Military.com reported on the development of the Gray Eagle, a new drone with a 56-foot wingspan and the ability to stay airborne for a full 24 hours. Fort Carson currently has 12 of these drones and they will soon be ready to be implemented in the ongoing war on terror.
The US Army considers drones to be a viable option for striking deep with drone operators staying close to the battlefield like a bunch of kids with remote control airplanes. But they need to carefully consider how they implement them and how they’re used.
Are drones a solid choice for counter-terrorism operations? The short answer is, yes. As Brookings.edu has wisely pointed out, they enable the military to target the enemy at little financial cost and at no risk to US forces.
While this is technically true, there are other factors to consider here. If we go on the word of Brookings’ Daniel L. Byman, drone strikes result in fewer civilian casualties than many alternative methods would cause, but that is a hard fact to confirm.
In 2016, the government claimed it had killed between 64 and 116 “non-combatants” in 473 counter-terrorism strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya between January 2009 and the end of 2015. Credible, independent attempts to determine how many civilians the Obama administration had killed arrived at numbers in the hundreds or even thousands.
Documents obtained by The Intercept have revealed that special operations in northeastern Afghanistan killed more than 200 people, only 35 of whom were the intended targets. During a five-month period of the operation, the documents claim that almost 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets.
None of this is to say that drones are not an effective weapon for combating terrorism. On the contrary, they have worked remarkably well when the military has employed them for taking out key leaders and denying terrorists sanctuaries in places like Pakistan and Somalia.
When it comes to entering enemy strongholds where intel suggests there many be a cache of radiological or biological weapons, it makes sense to target the enemy via airstrikes instead of boots on the ground, as it were.
Despite this, there is plenty of reason to believe that boots on the ground is integral to properly assessing threats. After all, a drone and its operator could never read a person’s body language up close and personal the way ground troops can.
Ground troops see things that an eye in the sky can never capture—they can see humanity, they can see someone subtly surrendering or informing them that there are children in a building with a target. These are things that drones will never do. At least, the odds are against it.
There is also the issue of drone failure or disruption; as we’ve seen with hobbyist drones here in the States, drones can collide with aircrafts as one did with an Army helicopter in New York City. These are all things that the military should be considering before deploying drones for special operations.
Special Weapons and Tactics Teams are typically armed with some variant of a 10mm pistol. Although such handguns are effective in common self-defense situations, they aren’t ideal for a SHTF scenario like the ones we face in broad combat environment. If you’re pinned down by ISIS in some Syrian s**thole, a pistol’s not gonna do you any good.
You’ve got a rifle, you say? So do they.
This is when drones could assist in an operation, but it’s important that they be implemented in concert with the human element of ground troops. It’s also imperative that we take note of what we’re up against. We’re not the only ones with drone capabilities.
ISIS have made their own mini-kamikaze fleet of drones; last year, factories built to modify UAVs were found in liberated regions of Mosul, pointing to an “increasing use by ISIS of weaponized drones,” said James Bevan, executive director of Conflict Armament Research.
In August of 2017, a suspected ISIS plot involving a drone attack on a Turkish air base used by the US Air Force was foiled when Turkish authorities nabbed a Russian national suspected of being an Islamic militant.
They have even used these drones to guide car bombs in addition to dropping explosives. The growing availability of commercial drones means that almost anyone can get their hands on one, often for very little money. This poses another conundrum altogether as homeland security needs to ponder the very real possibility of ISIS converts purchasing them on American soil for the express purpose of harming US citizens or authorities.
Defense Department spending plans portend a rise in funding for robotic systems in the coming years, according to a recent report by the Bard College Center for the Study of the Drone. The president’s 2018 defense budget has increased funding for research which suggests that he’s got his finger on the pulse.
With any luck, the boys in charge will place emphasis on studying and strategizing rather than rushing to send our the Gray Eagles when they’re ready for commission.
Updated on January 31, 2018
Democrats Sit Out American Values
Here is a summary of the State of the Union address last night.
Democrats won’t stand for the lowest black unemployment rate ever recorded? Even the CBC didn’t stand. They won’t stand for largest tax cut ever? #DemocratsSit.
Trump says terminal patients should be able to try life-saving treatments. #DemocratsSit.
Trump says Americans will start seeing more money in their pockets. #DemocratsSit.
Trump says we all share the same American flag. Half of Democrats won’t even stand for that.
Trump repeats our motto, In God we trust, and godless #DemocratsSit.
Trump talks about standing for our national anthem. #DemocratsSit.
Trump says he fired over 1000 VA employees who were not taking care of our veterans. #DemocratsSit.
Trump said he wants to reduce the price of prescription drugs. Even looks at Democrats. #DemocratsSit.
Trump says he expects trade agreements to be fair and reciprocal. #DemocratsSit.
Trump says he’s asking both parties in Congress to pass a bill to give us fast, reliable, and modern infrastructure. #DemocratsSit.
Trump says he wants to open vocational schools (despite the federal government having no business being involved in education and all) to help teach children a trade. Democrats love bug government, public brainwashing. #DemocratsSit
Trump expresses his condolences to a family in attendance who lost their children because of illegal immigrant gangs. #DemocratsSit
Trump says that Americans are dreamers too. #DemocratsSit
Trump says we need to work on an immigration reform package that is acceptable to both parties. #DemocratsSit
Trump says we should move to a merit-based immigration system where we admit people who have skills, are willing to work, and contribute to society. #DemocratsSit
Trump says he wants to put America first. #DemocratsSit
Trump hails the progress made against Isis in taking away nearly 100% of their territory. #DemocratsSit
Trump says that money for foreign assistance should only go to countries that are friends of America and have our best interests at heart. #DemocratsSit
Trump says that he stands with the Iranian people who are taking a stand for freedom. #DemocratsSit
Posted on January 29, 2018
The National Hearing Protection Act Should Be Music to Gun Lovers’ Ears
Gun lovers hear it all the time from people who didn’t grow up around firearms. “They’re so loud!” Fortunately for those with sensitive hearing, guns can be made quieter by using a device known as a suppressor.
Suppressors cut down on the sound and sight of muzzle blast by reducing the noise signature and visible flash. Their internal baffle components work to slow and cool down the gas which escapes when a gun is fired.
A common misconception is that suppressors completely silence a gun. In reality, this is not the case. Rather, a suppressor brings the decibel of gunfire down to a safer hearing level. By taking the decibel level down from around 180 to approximately 140 decibels, suppressors protect one against irreparable hearing loss.
On the downside, obtaining a suppressor requires some red tape at this time. Gun owners have to fill out a lot of paperwork and spend a bit of money to get their hands on a suppressor. That’s because suppressors are currently regulated under the National Firearms Act of 1934.
Luckily, a bill has been introduced in the House and Senate to change all this. The National Hearing Protection Act of 2017 seeks to eliminate the $200 transfer tax on firearm silencers and treat any person who acquires a suppressor as meeting any registration or licensing requirements of the National Firearms Act with regard to said suppressor.
The National Hearing Protection Act would limit regulation to simply passing a background check before one can purchase a suppressor. Naturally, one might wonder why the bill hasn’t been passed yet given that it seems like an easy fix. The problem is that the House and Senate are bombarded with bills for all sorts of things and the focus has largely been on tax reform and health care reform.
The bill was introduced on January 9th of 2017 and was swiftly referred to the Committee on Ways and Means as well as the Committee on the Judiciary, after which it was referred to the House Ways and Means…after which is was referred to the House Judiciary. Finally, on February 6th, it landed on the desk of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations.
There, it has stagnated ever since, but several organizations have stepped up to take action and get the legislation passed. The American Suppressor Association, Fight the Noise, Change.org and many other notable groups have come out in support of the bill.
They have turned to the public, imploring them to let their voices be heard by signing online petitions. Last year, the bill had 100 sponsors in the House.
The bill was tucked into the bipartisan Sportsmen Heritage and Recreational Enhancement (SHARE) Act, legislation that would cover everything from recreational fishing law and polar bear conservation to the elimination of authority to reclassify popular rifle ammo as “armor piercing ammunition.”
The National Hearing Protection Act has attracted consternation from Democrats and gun control groups. This controversy reached a fever pitch in the immediate aftermath of the Las Vegas shooting. As with most of the anti-gun gun rhetoric, the bill was slammed as posing a risk to public safety.
Opponents of the legislation falsely suggested that making suppressors readily accessible would make it more difficult for law enforcement to identify where gunshots are coming from, particularly in the event of a mass shooting.
But those of us who have worked in the field already know that criminals do not use suppressors, not because they aren’t available on the black market but because they add six to eight inches to the end of a barrel, making the gun harder to conceal.
Furthermore, the company behind ShotSpotter technology have already found that they are able to pick up on suppressed fire with their software, suggesting that they can easily tweak their program to identify muffled gunfire.
Reps. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) and John Carter (R-TX) who proposed the bill have been vocal about their intent and it has nothing to do with placing anyone in danger. On the contrary, their agenda is aimed at saving hunters as well as their hunting dogs from developing hearing loss.
As Rep. Duncan has said, “My hearing has been damaged because of gun noise. Had I had access to a suppressor, it may have protected me, as well as millions of other Americans, from this sort of hearing loss.”
For those who want to see this bill become a reality, the right thing to do is to contact one’s local congressman. To find out their contact info, visit congress.gov for their phone number and email address.
Before one becomes defeatist about the bill lying dormant for so long, it is important to keep in mind that the National Hearing Protection Act remains in the top ten bills viewed by the public, a fact that no doubts catches the attention of the House.
As we wait for the wheels of justice to slowly turn in our favor, there are plenty of options for protecting your hearing when using firearms. Noise reduction devices like electronic earmuffs and noise canceling hearing protectors are widely available online. Some websites that offer ear and eye protection also provide a military discount and giveaways.
At present, the bill has 141 co-sponsors in the House. That’s in spite of House Speaker Paul Ryan’s attempts at shelving the bill for good. And those numbers can grow if we the people apply appropriate pressure.
Posted on December 16, 2017
Texas and the Road to Secession
Texas has always embodied a fierce sense of independence that goes back to times before westerners settled it. Its rural and vast lands served as a home to tribal natives that valued their independence and typically resisted any efforts to encroach upon its territory. After Spain colonized modern-day Mexico, it moved into the Texas territory where it came in conflict with the French in the eastern parts of the state. In 1820, Mexico declared its independence from Spain which included the Texas territory, marking the first infusion of the spirit of resistance to centralized power. Fifteen years after Mexico gained its independence from Spain, Texas began the process of attaining its own independence from Mexico and in another ten years it would join the United States as the 28th state. Sixteen years after joining the Union, it would vote to secede and join the Confederacy. Texas was a unique state with a diverse population, eclectic history, and physical features that has contributed greatly to this spirit throughout history.
Before delving into the reasons why Texas voted for disunion, it’s important to understand some background that contributed to this fateful decision. The main issue of slavery was rooted in Texas since well before its founding when Stephen Austin successfully got the Mexican government to grant the territory an exception to the recently passed abolition of slavery throughout the country in 1829. The constitution of 1836 after Texas declared its independence specifically protected the ownership within the states and prohibited Congress from passing any laws that prevented immigrants from their slaves with them. The only way to free slaves was to petition the Texian Congress or ship them out of the state for emancipation. This paper analyzes the reasons for and against seceding from the Union and then joining the Confederacy from a social, economic, military, and political perspective.
The road to Texas secession wasn’t as clear cut as many believe. The diversity of the state contributed to wide divisions about the decision to leave the Union. Contrary to popular opinion, there was a huge population of people that were opposed to secession who may have had their votes and views suppressed. Texans were very opinionated, involved in state politics, and independent. The citizenry was composed of a majority of immigrants, both American and from foreign countries. In fact, only a quarter of those that lived in Texas in 1860 were born there and a third of the population was from Southern states. These immigrants brought with them their slaves which would be a major contributing factor in secession. The number of immigrants that lived in Texas was unparalleled in any other Southern state. With such an eclectic diversity of population, delving into the history of how it was possible that secession was overwhelmingly popular in nearly all quarters of the state.
Texas was no stranger to conflict having survived as both an independent nation and a state, it had had to deal with threats from Mexico and native Indian tribes. As the largest state in the Union, Texas had already displayed an extraordinary ability to handle violence and respond in kind. The influx of Northerners into the state began to plant more seeds of discontent in the state. The Texas Democrat Party Convention in 1860 added more fuel to the fire by laying out in no uncertain terms its support for slavery and opposition to anything that stood in its way. Despite their seemingly irrational stance, the platform did not gain much opposition because of going slave revolts, Indian attacks, and unrest along the southern Texas border. Extraterritorial issues like the Harper’s Ferry Raid and violence in Kansas steeled up support for protecting the state.
It is not surprising why delegates to the convention were more predisposed to leaving the Union to protect the institution of slavery. The median age of delegates was about 40 years old and 83% of them were under the age of 50. The ages of delegates no doubt played an important role since most of them were too young to remember or had taken part in either the Texas Revolution or were involved in the process of annexation from the beginning. Almost 91% of them were born in slave holding states. The remaining delegates were either foreign born or from free states. Not a single delegate was born in either Texas or the Republic of Texas.
The decision to secede from the Union was a contentious, though nearly unanimous, one in a state that prized its independent nature. Sam Houston himself cautioned delegates and citizens alike against secession and joining the Confederacy. Houston was a staunch Unionist and refused to pledge his allegiance to the Confederacy after the secession vote passed successfully in Austin. Houston sat whittling a piece of wood when his name was called four times to respond to annexation and the convention ruled that his seat was vacant. So strong was the mood in favor of secession that when one delegate, Senator James Webb Throckmorton, stood to vote against secession, an individual in the chamber gallery hissed at him. In response, Throckmorton uttered the famous retort that “when the rabble hiss, may well patriots tremble.” Throckmorton was one of Houston’s few Unionist supporters in the legislature. Though he opposed secession, Houston believed that the people should have a final say in whether the state left the union, not elected bureaucrats. He frequently chastised those whose voices were the loudest fighting for secession as men who had never sacrificed anything for liberty and were suddenly using it as a rallying call.
The Declaration of Causes presented the arguments and justification for leaving the Union. Chief among the complaints in the document was the preservation of slavery and a belief that the federal government had failed to live up to its promises fifteen years earlier when Texas joined the Union. Another complaint was that Texans felt abandoned to deal with threats alone against continued invasions by Mexico and violent raids by Indian tribes. There is no mincing words in the Declaration of Causes nor room for ambiguity. It makes clear that slavery was the number one issue that caused it to secede. Texas was admitted to the Union knowing that it would be a slave state. It was not forced to abolish that practice at the time and many Texans were not happy that President Lincoln, a northern abolitionist, was elected. They feared that the election would lead to the “peculiar institution” of slavery being banned and they were right. The state felt as if the promise granted to them upon statehood had been broken. Fifteen years after being admitted as a state, Texas was still having to deal with Mexican and Indian violence. Texans believed that the federal government wasn’t doing anything about these encroachments upon the land and were having to defend their own territory without its assistance. This is one of the reasons that many in Texas believed it could succeed simply reverting to an independent republic. Delegates already felt as if the North and South were separate nations with little in common beyond the constitution, which they felt was being violated in many ways.
So strong was the idea of popular sovereignty that most Texans who voted to secede did not want to join the Confederacy, but were determined to instead revert to their status as an independent nation so that they could govern themselves. Paul Pollard notes that those who argued for remaining in the Union remembered how fervently excited their fellow Texans were to become a state. Generally, Texans from the “upper south” were opposed to secession while “lower south” Texans were more favorable. Walter Buenger divided Texans’ support of secession into four groups: those who supported secession prior to the 1860 crisis; those who were spurred into support by the election of Abraham Lincoln; Texans who agreed with the convention declaration passed on February 23, 1861; and those who never supported secession. In his master’s thesis, Jimmie Hicks breaks down political sentiments into just three groups: those who supported “Southern Rights” and swift secession in the event Lincoln wins election; those who agree with the “Southern Rights” argument of the previous group but believed that such rights should be defended in the Union to the greatest extent possible; and unionists that disagreed with secession completely as extra-constitutional. For his part, Governor Sam Houston cautioned the convention to engage in a “calm deliberation” before making any final decisions. He noted that none of Texas’s neighbors had seceded and it would be more beneficial to try working with them to force the federal government’s hand to recognize the “constitutional rights” of Southern states.
When all the votes were counted, Texans voted by a three-to-one margin in favor of leaving the Union. Texan immigrants from the Upper Southern states tended to vote in favor of remaining in the Union, while those from the Lower Southern states, which had more in common with the Southern, cotton-planting states, voted for disunion. Immigrants and Mexicans were divided over the issue. This trend wasn’t absolute. Teresa York analyzed why Angelina County voted against secession despite the pro-secession proclivities of its surrounding counties. She found that wealth probably paid a part in why Texans voted against secession since they were less likely to own much land or slaves.
Matthew Hamilton’s research into the extremely pro-slavery attitude in Brazoria County supports York’s thesis. He found that Brazoria County was the most valuable farmland in Texas at the time. Some of the largest owners of land in Texas were in Brazoria County, which meant they owned a large number of slaves to produce its prized cotton. Unionists almost immediately began protesting the vote as fraudulent and rife with intimidation, outright voter suppression, and violence on the part of secessionists. Many innocent people were roped in to the conspiracy theories of slave uprisings and either whipped or lynched. Public outcry was growing but, as one Fort Worth citizen wrote, it didn’t matter how many suspicious men were hung as long as they didn’t let a single guilty man go free.
Dale Baum balks at suggestions that the secession referendum was skewed by voter fraud. In analyzing the data from the 1861 vote, he compared the disunion tallies with the number of votes for the Democratic candidate in the previous presidential election since Democrats were the loudest voices for secession. He did find evidence that suggested voter fraud was present, but not to such a degree that would have swayed the overall outcome of the referendum. Baum identified several counties where it seemed obvious voter fraud played a significant role in altering the vote totals in favor of disunion, but he also found several other counties where the exact opposite result was reached. In Cameron County, armed men were stationed at polling places where unionists were given “friendly warnings” to leave or refrain from voting. He concluded that even though evidence is present that disunionists played a role in vote tallies for secession, there was too much evidence of higher than normal votes for remaining in the Union in most of the counties where cries of fraud were loudest.
Walter Buenger suggests that the real reason voters cast ballots so overwhelmingly in support of disunion was because Democrat opponents, Upper South Texans, Texans in rural areas, and minorities simply were not organized well enough nor as united to make a difference. This nearly unanimous support for secession came as a surprise to at least one delegate from South Carolina who was confused about how a state with an ardent unionist governor, limited number of slaves in comparison to other southern states, and in which most of its land was still a vast frontier would decide to secede and join the Confederacy. In fact, it seemed as if Texas was not even paying attention to the issue of slavery in the years leading up to secession. As a Senator, Sam Houston never fully considered himself as a Southerner or Northerner. During the Oregon territory debate in Congress, Houston proclaimed that his only focus was on the Union and the constitution. Despite the opposition from many unionists, once the convention had made the decision and the voters had agreed to the referendum, most of them recognized that the “die is cast” and joined the fight. Before the provisional government had even voted by a 109 to 2 margin to be admitted into the southern Union, the Confederate Congress had already passed a resolution to admit Texas.
Secession seemed to be a foregone conclusion beginning in the mid-1850s. Northern states were becoming increasingly hostile to the institution of slavery and passing laws that made it difficult to expand the practice. New states were being admitted into the Union where slavery was illegal, which caused those in the South to worry that their interests were not being represented in Washington. By 1860, the decision to secede was overwhelmingly approved by both the Texas legislature and the voz populi. While the voting appears to be nearly unanimous, a closer inspection of the atmosphere surrounding the issue reveals that violence, intimidation, and disenfranchisement likely played a role. However, even taking these threats into account, the decision to secede would likely still have passed with a vast majority of support.
CJ Grisham, 1SG (Ret), US Army
Historian’s Craft
Texas A&M – Central Texas
Warriors
Fall 2017 Semester
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baum, Dale. “Pinpointing Apparent Fraud in the 1861 Texas Secession Referendum.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Autumn, 1991): 201-221.
Buenger, Walter L. “Stilling the Voice of Reason: Texans and the Union, 1854-1861.” PhD diss., Rice University, 1979.
———, Secession and the Union in Texas. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1984.
Campbell, Randolph B. Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
De Bruhl, Marshall. Sword of San Jacinto: A Life of Sam Houston. New York: Random House, 1993.
Declaration of Causes. February 2, 1861. Austin: Texas Library and Historical Commission.
Grear, Charles D. Texans and War: New Interpretations of the State’s Military History. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2012.
———, The Fate of Texas: The Civil War and the Lone Star State. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2008.
Hamilton, Matthew K. “The Pro-Slavery Argument in Brazoria County, Texas, 1840-1865.” East Texas Historical Journal, Vol. 52, No. 2 (Fall, 2014): 9-23.
Hicks, Jimmie E. “The Texas Secession Convention, 1860-1861.” Master’s thesis, University of Southern California, 1962.
Howell, Kenneth W. “When the Rabble Hiss, Well May Patriots Tremble: James Webb Throckmorton and the Secession Movement in Texas, 1854-1861.” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 109, No. 4. (April, 2006): 465-493.
Jordan, Terry G. “The Imprint of the Upper and Lower South on Mid-Nineteenth Century Texas.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, No. 4 (December, 1967): p. 667-690.
Journal of the Secession Convention of Texas, 1861 (E.W. Winkler, ed.; Austin, 1912), 61-65.
Marten, James. Texas Divided: Loyalty and Dissent in the Lone Star State, 1856-1874. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2015.
Pollard, Paul A. “Texas and Secession: A Challenge to Popular Sovereignty.” Master’s thesis, Baylor University, 1978.
Richardson, Rupert N., Adrian Anderson, and Ernest Wallace. Texas: The Lone Star State. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1993.
Sandbo, Anna Irene. “Beginnings of the Secession Movement in Texas.” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol.18, No. 1 (July, 1914): 41-73.
Texas Legislature. Senate. “Governor Sam Houston statement on secession to full Senate.” 8th Legislature, Joint Special Session. Senate Journal (January 21, 1861).
Wooster, Ralph A. “An Analysis of the Membership of the Texas Secession Convention.” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 62, No. 3 (January, 1959): pp. 322-335.
York, Teresa K. “Piney Woods’ Dissidence: Angelina County in the 1850’s and the Secession Crisis.” Master’s Thesis, Stephen F. Austin State University, 1990.
Updated on December 16, 2017
The Road to Annexation: Foreign Policy & The Quest for Recognition In the Republic of Texas
The history of Texas is well-documented in various forms and fashions. Texas independence is a frequent subject of research for historians due to the peculiar and unique nature of its path to statehood. Texas is the only state that was once its own country and it is also the only state that was annexed as such. The story of Texas statehood and subsequent secession are matters of elementary history and generally common knowledge. However, little research seems to have been written about the foreign policy of the Republic of Texas during its ten-year span as its own nation and the internal struggle for statehood that seemed to cause more controversy than the entrance of virtually any other state in to the Union.
Immediately upon declaring independence, Texas began the arduous task of seeking recognition from foreign nations in the hopes of securing financing, investment, trade, and political relationships. It would take nearly two years for the United States to recognize the newly formed what would serve as a springboard for Texas delegations to secure the recognition of European powers. Such recognition was not easy to come by and diplomats were frustrated that their struggle for legitimacy took years to accomplish. For its part, Texas tried to hide much of its financial problems and ongoing conflicts with the indigenous tribes and Mexico to convince foreign nations that Texas was a stable and low risk economic power that would greatly benefit European powers. Texian leaders were under the false assumption that if the hoped-for annexation into the Union did not happen immediately, securing recognition would at least hasten this effort.
This paper will explore the foreign policy interaction between the Republic of Texas and other nations, mainly the United States and Europe. It will also analyze why it took ten years to be annexed into the United States despite vigorous efforts immediately after independence to become the 28th state. Research will be based primarily on primary sources documents and incorporate previous scholarly research on the subject to provide additional context, background, and clarity. I will answer to what degree foreign governments affected or interfered with attempts by the Republic of Texas to gain statehood or maintain its independence as a nation.
Texans were unhappy about the treatment of its people in the Mexican state of Texas. In November 1835, delegates drafted a declaration of independence (sometimes referred as the declaration of causes) and submitted it a committee that was formed to consider the prospect of independence. The declaration listed several causes for why Texas should declare its independence, the foremost being that General Santa Anna was refusing to abide by the provisions of the Constitution of 1824 and using force to impose his will upon Texans. This was ironic considering Santa Anna had proclaimed to be a loyalist to the constitution in his struggles with President Anastacio Bustamante.
After Texas declared independence from Spain, Santa Anna decided to force the Yucatan to pay over two hundred thousand pesos for the war. He also conscripted 2,500 citizens to serve in the Mexican Army to fight against Texas. This angered the Yucatan peninsula since it violated the agreements that had been made when it joined Mexico. Yucatan considered independence and the Texas declaration pledged its assistance to the Yucatecans in the Mexican confederacy. By 1840, the Yucatan and Texas had signed formal relations and the Congress had pledged a virtual blank check to the defense of the country should Mexico again become belligerent. In return, Texas would be paid 8,000 pesos each month to help pay for said defense. In return, the Yucatan declared that the Texans would always be welcome with open arms after which Present Lamar granted most favorable nation station to the peninsula.
Meanwhile, Texas delegates believed that if they did not demand independence that Mexico would continue despotic practices. Since Texas was already responsible for paying for its defense in the region, independence would no necessarily require the raising of an Army. Ethel Rather theorized that the declaration was not meant for the eyes of Mexico, but to draw the attention of capitalists in the United States.
Upon gaining independence, David G. Burnet was selected as the ad interim President of the newly formed republic. Burnet was the son of a doctor who had served in the Continental Congress. When Mexico began offering land grants in the Texas province, Burnet took advantage of this opportunity and was granted land in the Nacogdoches area to settle 300 families. Burnet proved to be an inept businessman, but found his place in politics and became the head judge of the Brazos District Court. Due to his opposition to Texas independence, he was not selected to take part in the Convention of 1836, but defiantly showed up anyway. His audacity was rewarded when he was selected to be the provisional president of the newly formed Republic of Texas at perhaps one of the worst times in Texas history.
Internal issues threatened the fledgling nation. Provisional governor Henry Smith was embroiled in inter-party controversy and tried to dissolve the provisional council. In response, the council suspended Smith from acting as Governor and charged him with serious and weighty offenses like perjury, libel, and defamation against the council. Among them was $5000 given to Smith that was never deposited in the treasury that was a gift to Texas from Henry Rufus Willie Hill (Ambassador to Texas) in Tennessee. Neither the treasury nor the council were ever given an accounting of this money and the council feared that a pending million-dollar load would likewise disappear if Smith were given possession of it instead of it going straight to the treasury. The council passed a resolution making James Robinson the provisional governor. In lieu of trial, he refused to step down until he was voted out in the 1836 Convention a month and a half later.
Mexico refused to acknowledge Texas independence and made clear that any claims to land, loans made in its name, or contracts between the Republic and other nations would not be recognized. Meanwhile, a delegation from the Republic of Texas consisting of BT Archer, SF Austin, and WH Wharton arrived in Washington in April. However, they had not officially received any communications from the Republic of Texas with the official declaration of independence and the American government despite the declaration being reprinted in newspapers. They wanted something concrete and the delegates were worried that they would not receive something before the congress recessed.
Almost immediately upon independence, Texas began seeking admission into the Union. In a letter dated April 9, 1836 to Governor of Texas from WH Wharton (he was unaware that President Burnet was the president of the Republic, not a governor), Wharton implored the governor to join the Union and expressed that he would nearly everything he owned to achieve this objective. On May 26, 1836, President David Burnet sent a letter authorizing Commissioners James Collinsworth and Peter Grayson to secure recognition of Texas independence and annexation of Texas into the United States. One of the problems that faced the Republic was that dispatches were delayed due to hostilities the Indian tribes in the South.
Burnet listed several terms upon which Texas would agree to annexation, the majority of which were simply recognition of current laws and practices within the Republic. His third point was an emphatic defense of slavery within Texas and treated as the property of their respective owners. Slavery had been a part of Texas to some degree since before its founding. The territory had even been granted an exemption to the abolition of slavery in the Mexican Constitution of 1836.
By early April 1836, there was a lot of trepidation about the Mexican threat. In a letter to President Burnet from Texas Secretary of State Sam Carson dated July 3, 1836, he relayed President Andrew Jackson’s concerns about the ability of Texas to afford or equip forces to deal with the Mexican threat. Though upbeat at the positive progress made in Congress, Carson was worried about a secret agent named Marfit who was dispatched to Texas by the US Government spy on the conditions within Texas; specifically, the competency and strength of the military and the organization of the government. Later in the year, President Jackson reported to the Congress his opinion that the United States should delay the decision to annex Texas into the Union until either Mexico recognized its independence or until such a time had elapsed that there was no dispute as to its status.
President Sam Houston
In October 1836, Sam Houston became the first elected president of Texas. Houston was a controversial figure in both Texas and United States politics. At the age of 27, he enlisted in the United States Army to fight in the War of 1812 against Britain. After the British continued to refuse to abide by treaty agreements following the end of the American revolution and the island nation’s continued impressment of American sailors in its fight against the French. Marshall de Bruhl notes that Houston did not seek to become a soldier and decided to join after happening upon a recruiter set up at the courthouse in Maryville, Tennessee. The recruiter was offering a silver dollar to anyone who enlisted and Houston immediately seized upon the opportunity to join and the military and quit his scholastic life. This angered his father who was a major in the United States military and felt that it was beneath Houston to become a common soldier. Defiantly, he responded to his father’s disgust by predicting that, while his father does not “know me now…you shall hear of me” in the future. Meanwhile, Houston’s mother was compassionate and supportive of his decision and counseled him to serve with honor. It is unclear whether pressure from his father or other influential figures were responsible for an appointment to ensign from Secretary of War John Armstrong that Houston received six months after he enlisted, but Houston accepted and reported immediately to the 39th U.S. Regimental Infantry. Honoring his mother’s instructions Houston served with honor, bravely leading charges against fierce Indian foes in the Battle of Tohopeka that resulted in injuries that doctors did not believe he would survive. After his successful time as a military officer Houston returned to his home state and became a veteran politician serving as the governor of Tennessee and as a U.S. representative of the same state before moving to Texas in 1832.
By 1837, the United States government still had not recognized the Republic of Texas. The inability to raise troops, the lack of money to pay for its own defense, and the anarchy in neighboring Mexico were contributing factors to this delay. WH Wharton had another explanation for the refusal of Congress to act on recognition: it was all politics. In a letter to President Sam Houston, Wharton relays that the real reason for the delay is that legislators were concerned about the upcoming presidential campaign of Vice President van Buren. They were concerned that if they immediately gave recognition to Texas independence, the question of annexation would immediately need to be answered and that Van Buren’s decision on annexation or no annexation would cause him to lose the election. If forced to choose, support from either the North or South would hinge on that decision. This would, in turn, affect the re-election prospects of Van Buren’s party in Congress.
Meanwhile, relations between Great Britain, the United States, and Mexico were further strained when word came that Mexico had offered to sell Texas to Great Britain. Mexico refused to recognize Texas independence and believed that it had the authority and right to sell what it considered its land. Fearing annexation by the United States, Mexico was determined to create a buffer between the two nations. Both the United States and Great Britain were concerned that should either nation take possession of Texas, the balance of power would be tipped towards that nation.
Mexico was continuing to fund Indian hostilities against Texians. Acting Texas Secretary of State, James Pinkney Henderson, noted that the commander of the Mexican Army had paid the chiefs in eastern Texas $1000 and another $5000 worth of weapons and ammunition. Henderson was also trying to enlist the assistance of the United States since the Indian violence that was happening on the eastern and northern borders of Texas could have easily spilled into the United States. Texas minister Mecuman Hunt was hopeful that this development would spur the United States to become more predisposed to annexing the state.
Neither Great Britain nor the United States wanted the other to annex or acquire Texas. Britain still refused to acknowledge “the Band of outlaws who occupy Texas” but doubted that they could ever influence the destiny of Texas and instead worked to convince Mexico to walk away from their desires to reestablish control over the land. Britain was the primary economic partner with Mexico and feared that conflict with Texas would interrupt that relationship. In the United States, those pushing for annexation were concerned that an independent Texas would be more susceptible to British influence and that the Texas would become dependent on the island nation which would hamper trade with the United States. Pro-slavery Americans feared that enlightened British influence would cause Texas to abandon their support for and use of slavery.
In his November 21, 1837 address to Congress, President Houston continued to lament the progress in achieving American annexation. Acknowledging the financial instability of the Republic which he believed was embarrassing, he continued to press the body to pass legislation that would improve the situation with impotent land offices. Due to the financial crisis of 1837 in the United States, he was unable to secure a five-million-dollar loan to help prop up the economy. Texian currency was derived from American currency and suffered along with the neighboring nation. The onset of the Panic of 1837 naturally affected the ability of the Republic to maintain financial stability. Texas did not have its own currency, but accepted currency from several states. With a lack of stable and uniform currency, many people engaged in trade instead of relying on currency. In an effort to raise money Congress distributed $500,000 in paper currency, called star currency. These were essentially promissory notes since the state was virtually bankrupt and came with a 10% interest guarantee that were predicated on land sales to repay them within a year. A year later, Congress reissued the notes and printed an additional one million dollars in star currency without interest. The bill was vetoed by President Houston who was very protective of the Republics financial situation, but his vetoed was overridden by Congress. Within a year, the non-interest-bearing notes became devalued by 60% while the rest retained their value.
Houston’s vice president, Mirabeau Lamar, was elected to succeed him as president and held wildly differing views of how to financially manage the country. For example, Houston adamantly opposed the created of a national bank while Lamar tried futilely to convince Congress to establish one. Houston grew up among the Cherokee and his administration maintained a relationship of mutual respect. Lamar was also very hostile to Indians and engaged in a very expensive and costly effort to either exterminate them or drive them from within the borders of the Republic. Additionally, Lamar was incensed that Mexico had still failed to recognize the independence of Texas and approached Congress to build a navy to force Mexico by force to do so. Congress again rebuffed the president who sent out an expedition to Santa Fe to negotiate a secret deal for recognition. Instead, the effort failed due to its cost and the troops were forced to surrender. Lamar’s aggressive actions against the Indians, failed military attempted to force Mexico to capitulate on independence, and Congress’s irresponsible issuance of large numbers of promissory notes resulted in desperate circumstances after his administration more than tripled the public debt. These actions were highly ironic and hypocritical considering Lamar’s inaugural address began with the promise that his administration would be of peace with all peoples in the area.
Meanwhile, the fiscal situation continued to worry Washington, D.C., and continued to plague the state’s efforts at annexation. Lamar’s opposition to annexation played another key role in delaying annexation for at least three more years. He believed that Texas was destined to be a great empire and adopted the American attitude of manifest destiny to grow Texas territory exponentially. Despite these delays in annexation, U.S. President Andrew Jackson signed a resolution passed in both houses of Congress recognizing the Republic of Texas as an independent nation on March 3, 1837. This angered the Mexican government and resulted in their escalating efforts to bring the territory back under its proper rule, beginning with the capture of the Texian minister to the United States, Colonel Wharton. The Republic immediately appealed to the United States to assist in securing the return of the diplomat.
After securing the recognition by the United States, Houston sent J.P. Henderson to France to convince the country to likewise recognize Texas as an independent state. With France embroiled in a conflict with Mexico and Henderson saw the blockades of Mexican ports as an opportunity to convince the French to acquiesce to his request. Henderson sought an audience with Count Molé to discuss the arrangement and reminded him that the United States had given recognition a year prior. Molé agreed to meet with Henderson but could not receive him as an agent of Texas because Molé was concerned that doing so would be a de facto recognition of independence. Molé agreed to listen to Texas’ plea, but the language barrier between the two made conversation difficult and Henderson informed him that for the benefit of the two he would submit his statement in writing so it could be easily interpreted.
The exhaustive letter to the Count contained several reasons why France should recognize the independence of the Republic of Texas. Prior to listing these reasons, Henderson recited a brief history of the settlement of Texas followed by the grievances against Mexico that led to the Texas revolution, including the violations of the rights guaranteed under the Constitution of 1824. First, Henderson highlighted the success of Texian military battles against numerically superior and well equipped Mexican forces as proof that the government of Texas was more than capable of defending its nation with forces that he believed were far superior in skill, courage, humanity, and adhering to modern-day rule of civilized warfare. Santa Anna and other Mexican generals were adept at torturing prisoners of war and killing others in cold blood while captive. Henderson no doubt wanted to convince the French that they would not be siding with a banana republic or population of lawless bandits. He appealed to the Count’s sense of humanity by highlighting the atrocities of the Mexican government against the Texians even after the revolution, specifically the massacre of Colonel Fannin and over 400 of his troops and civilians who surrendered or were previously held prisoner.
Meanwhile, the Texian military had performed with honor by treating prisoners with respect and allowing Santa Anna’s forces to retreat in peace after securing assurances that Mexico would recognize Texas independence. Henderson wrote that while the Mexicans had not honored the terms of the agreement in recognizing independence they had not executed a single incursion across the border since. Further appealing to French attitudes about Mexico, Henderson reminded Count Molé that the Mexican population, which he considered barely civilize, was no more than an unorganized gaggle in a constant state of instability and revolution since gaining independence from Spain.
Henderson then sought to convince the Count that following independence the Texian people organized to establish a legitimate government. He laid out how the new government was formed and that it constituted a government with a separation of powers and republican representation with judicial, legislative, and executive branches that has brought a sense of “prosperity and harmony unparalleled in any other Country under similar circumstances.” He neglected to mention that the republic was petitioning for loans to cover its debts and pay for its ongoing conflicts with Indians and centralist sympathizers in the frontier areas. Henderson did, however, inform the Count that Texas has vast amounts of land that will yield a large amount of revenue for the state to further sway the belief that the nation would enjoy much future success and stability. Texas also possessed an abundance of cotton, rice sugar, tobacco and other commodities with which it could enter into trade agreement upon recognition from France. Texians would benefit from France’s silks, wines, finished cotton textiles, and other items of commerce.
Texas Secretary of State Robert Anderson Irion worried that the ongoing Mexican-French conflict was going to spill into Texas and cut off trade between it and the United States. Irion requested that Texas minister to England and France J. Pinckney Henderson communicate to the French King that the Mexicans had occupied the port of Corpus Christi and that Texas would not be opposed to the French extending their blockade to the Texian coast to prevent further encroachment by the Mexicans. Henderson did not like that idea because Texas was dedicated to convincing the French that the Republic was able to handle its own security. Houston then sent artillery and other munitions to Corpus Christi to end the occupation. Irion sent numerous letters to Texas minister to England and France J. Pinckney Henderson to hasten the King’s decision making. In the meantime, Texas and France entered into trade agreement that was beneficial to both nations despite a lack of formal recognition from the latter of independence even though the language of the treaty identified Texas a most favored “nation” and referred to its authorities as a government which stopped just short of outright recognition. The agreement was contingent on Texas remaining independent of Mexico. Ironically, the trade agreement that the British had proposed was contingent upon Texas remaining a part of Mexico, but the French deal was much more advantageous and was more in line with Texian priorities.
After the Texas elections of 1838, Texas withdrew its petition for annexation after the US Congress adjourned without acting on the issue. Newly elected President Mirabeau Lamar was more interested in building up the nation than wasting time chasing after the United States begging for annexation. Henderson excitedly relayed this information to the French and British governments in the hopes it would finally agree that Texas was an independent nation and would be in perpetuity. The following year, the French government was thrown into disarray due to the King’s censuring of the Chamber of Deputies for their mismanagement of foreign affairs.
In early 1839, Texas ambassador to France, J Pinckney Henderson, continued to be frustrated that Texas had not sent official documentation identifying him as a representative of the Republic. He was at a standstill futilely trying to seek recognition from France without it. Concurrently, England was resistant to providing recognition while the Canadians remained a threat to their influence in the North American colonies. Great Britain was also opposed to Texas’s use and policy of slavery (as was France), though they admitted that the Texas constitution allowed the practice that the British were obliged to recognize as an independent nation (at least, as independent a nation as it was considered at the time without official recognition). In early Summer of 1839, Texas Finance Secretary James Hamilton and Texas Loan Commissioner Albert T. Burnley sent a secret, joint letter to President Lamar suggesting that he authorize the payment of $50,000 to French officials to expeditiously gain recognition. They concluded that without what amounted to a bribe it would take no less than six months to gain French approval; however, with the money the French would bestow recognition in less than a week. France desperately wanted to enter into a commercial trade agreement with Texas that would include recognition, but Henderson explained to Lamar that he wanted to obtain recognition before agreeing to such a Treaty. French Foreign Minister Baron Pontois informed Henderson that France had historically completed these types of negotiations with other nations in this manner and Henderson relayed details of the proposed agreement to President Lamar. Henderson explained that exporting Texian commodities to France would greatly benefit the Republic since many products were in high demand there. However, the French insisted on a constant stream of ever-changing demands for Texas to reduce tariffs even more on agreed upon products and include new reductions on others going so far as to accuse Texas of having inferior cotton to the United States. Henderson recognized this as an attempt to undermine negotiations and refused to back down on decreasing the duty on cotton, especially considering that it is no higher than on cotton from the United States. Henderson was also concerned that if he agreed to reductions of duties on Texian products, he would have to do the same for other European powers which would have negative consequences on the Texian economy.
Both nations finally entered into an agreement and in September 1839, France was the first European nation to grant recognition to the Republic of Texas. French Chargé d’affaires, Jean Pierre Isidore Alphonse Dubois (he would later add “de Saligny” to his name and introduce himself to Texian delegations as the Count de Saligny), was later sent to Texas to report on the conditions there to determine the stability of the nation prior to agreeing to any trade treaty. Saligny’s report was troublesome. In a letter to Texian Secretary of State Abner Lipscomb on March 6, 1840, Saligny bemoaned the conditions in Texas, specifically the threat of invasion by Mexico; the devaluation of the Republic’s star currency to 20 cents on the dollar; and problems with U.S. merchants who were concerned over potential trade agreements with European powers.
In February of 1841, another scandal threatened Franco-Texian relations when a servant from Saligny’s delegation in Austin was attacked by an inn keeper named Richard Bullock. Saligny claims that his servant was attacked unprovoked, but Bullock’s pigs had wondered into Saligny’s stables and began eating corn that was meant for Saligny’s horses. In response, the servant – named Eugene Pluyette – shot and killed the pigs. Angered by this, Bullock attacked Pluyette with rocks and then began thrashing him with a stick. An angered Saligny demanded that Texian Secretary of State James Mayfield punish Bullock after he had attacked Pluyette two more times, one of which was with an axe that inflicted serious wounds. Mayfield attempted to assure Saligny that Bullock was being dealt with through the legal process, but Saligny was unhappy with the delays of the slow moving legal system. When Mayfield informed Saligny that Bullock was set for trial and that Pluyette must appear before the court to testify against Bullock, Saligny fumed and castigated Mayfield for what he considered a breach in international protocol. He replied that he would allow Pluyette to submit a statement, but would not allow him to appear before the court. Mayfield responded that the Texas Constitution afforded to the accused the right to confront their accuser, to which Saligny reminded him that the protections and privileges of international law forbade foreign ministers and their staff from being called before foreign tribunals. At an impasse and angered by the delays, Saligny felt as if the character and trust that France had bestowed upon Texas was undeserving of the indignation and insult it was subjected to.
Texian leaders had had enough of Saligny. He had become a distraction and did more harm than good in fostering positive relations between the two nations. Prior to the “pig war,” Saligny had received counterfeit money that he received from New Orleans and knew to be counterfeit. He used this counterfeit money to pay to teamsters and others who helped to set up his delegation. Mr. Saligny refused to redeem the counterfeit money so that the poor teamster was reimbursed for his work. The Department of Treasury decided to reimburse the teamster $300 and buy back the counterfeit money to preserve public confidence in the integrity of the French delegate. Later, Saligny refused to pay his boarding fee that he considered too high. These incidents hampered efforts by Texas to obtain a five-million-dollar loan and caused French ambassador to temporarily move his delegation to New Orleans. Saligny continued to cause problems and forced Texian diplomats to write to the French king and request that Saligny be recalled and a replacement foreign minister take his place. The Republic desperately wanted to maintain positive relations with France, but this was impossible under the current circumstances.
Belgium was not initially considered a prospect and the newly formed independent nation was not even approached until 1839. Texas recognized that the key to financial solvency and international respect depended upon international commerce and spent a lot of time and energy in Europe, spurred on by delays obtaining United States recognition early on. Belgium turned out to a be a tough sell. The global economic situation made it difficult to negotiation treaties, especially considering the main motivation behind the Texas push for recognition was to secure loans. The king understood that Texas was rich in resources, but wanted land for colonization and heavily reduced tariffs on linens and weapons – the main sources of income for the Republic at the time. King Leopold was concerned about relations with Mexico should Belgium open up commercial treaties with Texas. After King Leopold learned that Great Britain had entered into several treaties with Texas in 1840, he felt more empowered to engage in negotiations again. Negotiations were slow because Belgium maintained a desire for land in exchange for a $7 million-dollar loan in addition to lower rates on goods. Finance Minister James Hamilton intentionally neglected to acknowledge Belgium’s desires for land and colonization in Texas and invited British diplomat Camille de Briey to send a representative to Texas to see for himself that the Republic was a stable and legitimate nation. The representative, an artillery captain name Victor Pirson, was not encouraged from the moment he landed in Boston.
After a pessimistic response by American President Tyler about his opposition to European meddling in North American affairs, Pirson was weary. Then, in New Orleans, he was again disappointed by a report that a British effort to secure land grants had fallen through and that negotiations between Texas and Mexico were getting increasingly hostile after Sam Houston was again elected President. Hamilton also learned that Houston had revoked his powers to engage in treaties and that previous loan bill had been repealed. Hamilton had operated largely without the guidance (or approval) of Congress and that angered Houston who criticized his diplomacy and believed that he was conspiring with the British to establish an anti-slavery colony in Texas. Belgium never officially entered into any treaties with Texas largely a result of its interests in Guatemala and a desire not to risk relationships with Mexico and the United States. They delayed so long that, by 1843, the prospect of Texan annexation into the Union made any further discussions about foreign treaties a moot point.
Texas had an impressive degree of success in foreign affairs, but that success was slow in coming. The constant threats from Mexican and Indian raids, debt, and the uncertainty of whether the United States would annex Texas further contributed to this delay. Additionally, foreign policy varied widely with each new president. Typically, any treaties entered into by a previous administration were nullified, regardless of how far along talks had progressed or how close to finalizing a deal they were. The question of annexation played a role in every relationship with European nations because it created uncertainty. Some nations were unconcerned with the question of annexation because they had positive with the United States and Texas becoming a state would not have had any impact of arrangements in the newly formed state. In its short ten-year lifespan, Texas diligently and untiringly pursued recognition and economic success.
Mounting debts, the never-ending threats of violence from Indians and Mexico, an inability for the government to get its feet on firm ground, and constantly shifting foreign policy strategies severely retarded any efforts at becoming a great and independent nation. Even though Texas only succeeded in attracting recognition by a small number of foreign nations, it secured other beneficial trade deals. Those trade deals were typically one-sided since Texans could not afford to pay for many products without selling land.
The first ratification treaty submitted to the Senate by President Tyler was reject by a nearly two-thirds vote. Instead of admitting Texas into the Union as a state, the treaty would have admitted Texas first as a territory, but it would have required the Texas to give up all public lands to the federal government. No doubt, this provision would have been rejected by Texas if it had been passed and submitted to Texians for ratification. They prized private property and the maintenance of Texian land remaining under the control of the territory upon annexation into the Union. Finally, the United States would have paid off all of the Texian debt once admitted as a territory, something that greatly threatened the solvency and continued existence of the Republic. The treaty was rejected after bitter debate over the question of admitting another slave state which would have tipped the balance away from the strength of the abolitionist movement that beginning to take hold across the country. Mexico continued to refuse to accept the independence of Texas and senators were concerned that adding the territory to the United States would spark a war with the Mexicans. The debate lasted for three weeks before it was ultimately defeated.
One of the reasons – besides simply not recognizing the independence of Texas – that the Mexicans were opposed to any treaty giving its former territory any sort of recognition was that Mexico was still unhappy with operations of the Texian Navy under Commodore E.W. Moore. Moore had essentially taken over the Gulf of Mexico without President Houston’s approval. Houston was adamantly opposed to Moore because of his brazen and open opposition to much of the president’s agenda. Many Texian’s, however, supported Moore’s actions. Moore was charged with seven counts, but the court only found him guilty on the charge of “disobedience.” For his part, Houston decided that his friendly relations with the British and French negated any need for a Texian Navy in the Gulf of Mexico and disbanded it. Some have suggested that the reason Houston disbanded the Navy was to ensure that unproved hostilities would persuade the United States to intervene and hasten annexation.
The British tried desperately to convince Texas not to sign on to the treaty and made several concessions that Britain hoped would lead to continued independence. The British Earl of Aberdeen made an enticing offer to Texas that offered to work with France to end the Mexican incursions and encourage them to recognize the borders that Texas claimed. By this point, Great Britain was no interested in pushing the anti-slavery narrative and completely ignored the issue in the act. They were no longer concerned with angering the United States and instead was hoping to stem the tide of American expansion to the greatest degree possible and even hinted that it would risk war in the achievement of this goal. Oddly it was willing to potentially go to war with the United States to prevent annexation, but it would that it would abandon the effort is Mexico refused to agree to it. It appears that Great Britain was more interested in protecting its relationship with Mexico than with the United States. Aberdeen assumed that war with the United States was unlikely because he did not think the they would dare to go to war with the combined might of Great Britain and France. The proposal died after neither Texas nor Mexico would acquiesce to its terms.
With the election of pro-annexation president James Polk, President Tyler quickly moved to pass another resolution to create the State of Texas. Several aspects of the second treaty remained in place. The United States would absorb the Republic’s immense debt, but Texas would have to sell some land to help pay it off instead of bequeathing it to the federal government. In the few years prior to annexation, the Texas economy had virtually crashed. The Texian “Red Back” currency was worthless and few transactions were made with currency. The barter system was used in more than 90% of all transactions at the time. News of annexation increased the value of the notes nearly on par with its printed value. The Republic would be annexed into the United States as a state instead of a territory and be required to adopt a new state constitution that was compatible with the federal constitution. Texians would have to approve both the annexation and the constitution prior to formal action. Most citizens were happy with the eventuality of becoming since the federal government would help to secure security and provide for a sounder monetary system to replace the failed Texian system.
In February1845, Congress passed the resolution and sent it to Texas for ratification and approval. On July 4, 1845 – a date chosen symbolically – Texas voted for delegates to form a convention to approve and adopt the terms of the treaty. They also began the arduous task of creating a state constitution. The constitution was approved by voters in October and in late December President Polk signed the Texas Admission Act, making Texas the 28th state of the Union after two years of bitter debate over admitting another slave state into the Union. Under the treaty, the United States absorbed the Republic’s immense debt, but Texas was required to sell off some land to help pay it off.
CJ Grisham, 1SG (Ret), US Army
Senior Research Thesis
Texas A&M – Central Texas
Warriors
Fall 2017 Semester
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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———. Stephen Austin to A.J. Yates, January 21, 1836. Letter. TSLAC.
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Burnet, David. President David Burnet to United States Secretary of State, May 26, 1836. Letter. TSLAC.
———. President Burnet to Commissioners James Collinsworth and Peter Grayson, May 26, 1836, Letter, TSLAC.
Carson, Sam. Texas Secretary of State Sam Carson to President Burnet. April 9, 1836. Letter. TSLAC.
De Saligny, Alphonse Dubois. Saligny to Lipscomb. March 6, 1840. Letter. TSLAC.
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Hamilton, James & Albert T. Burnley. J. Hamilton & A.T. Burnley to President Mirabeau Lamar. June 22, 1839. Letter. TSLAC.
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Henderson, J. Pinckney. J. Pinckney Henderson to William H. Wharton, January 21, 1837. Letter. TSLAC.
———. Henderson to Count Molé. June 1, 1838. Letter. TSLAC.
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Robinson, James. James Robinson to Stephen F. Austin, William H. Wharton, and B.T. Archer, January 23, 1836. Letter. TSLAC.
Roeckell, Lelia M. “Bonds Over Bondage: British Opposition to the Annexation of Texas.” Journal of the Early Republic Vol. 19, no. 2 (Summer, 1999): 257-278
Siegel, Stanley. A Political History of the Texas Republic, 1836-1845. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1956.
Sturdevant, Paul E. “Robert John Walker and Texas Annexation: A Lost Champion.” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. CIX, no. 2 (October 2005): 189-202.
Unknown. “Stephen F. Austin and the Independence of Texas.” Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association no. 13 (1910): 257-284
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Wharton, William. William H. Wharton to President Sam Houston, February 2, 1837. Letter. TSLAC.
———. W.H. Wharton to Henry Smith, April 9, 1836. Letter. TSLAC.
Posted on October 26, 2017
It’s Not a War on Cops
The Supreme Court is set to hear a case that could lead to liability for officers making false arrests. Naturally, police unions and their apologists in the media and in conservative circles aren’t happy about this. The NY Post called the case a “war on cops,” but I would argue it’s everything but that. The case revolves around some arrests for “disorderly conduct” of some citizens at a party. “Disorderly conduct” statutes are incredibly vague in many states and I’ve seen quite often cops using these laws against people for simply standing up for their rights or yelling at an officer. In Texas, we had numerous arrests of people lawfully carrying firearms because people were calling the police claiming to be “alarmed,” which is a trigger word in Texas law. Every case was dismissed and the arrests should have never happened. In many cases, the arrested gun owners even had copies of the law that the police refused to even look at when making the decision to effect an arrest. We are suing them.
Hopefully, SCOTUS recognizes the problem we have with modern day policing. Almost unanimously, I hear cops saying “the place to argue is in the courts” or “we’ll let the courts decide” whether an arrest is legal. There is no personal responsibility nor consequences for a cop throwing someone in jail unjustly. They process the person into jail and simply move to the next person. When charges are thrown out, there’s no consequences for the arresting officer or the department. No training; nothing.
Meanwhile, a person falsely arrested must spend hours (or days) in jail being treated like dirt by jailers and waiting to get bailed out, which costs hundreds or thousands of dollars. They are required to wear demeaning clothing, eat terrible food, and obey nonsense orders from power mad handlers (shut up, face that way, sit down, stand up, don’t look at me, stop smiling, etc – I personally heard them all). Then, the person must find an attorney to find the bogus charges to get them dropped. Once charges are dropped because no crime was committed, that person doesn’t get that money back he had to spend. Not even a formal apology from the officer(s) or department.
This isn’t a problem of “gray areas.” I’ve literally seen with my own eyes a person READING the law to a cop that makes perfectly clear they are well within the law only to hear the cops say “that’s for the courts to decide” despite the wording of said law being totally unambiguous.
We don’t expect cops to be perfect and understand that they will make mistakes, but those mistakes affect the lives of other people. Some lose jobs and others lose income. The arrest is kept in the system so next time they are treated worse because now they’re a “problem child.” If someone is falsely arrested twice (this is common for activists) the court will raise the bond even higher for a minor charge. At some point, cops need to have consequences for those mistakes just as we do when we make them. “Ignorance of the law is no excuse,” remember?
The problem goes beyond this. Police are killing so many people for simply moving their hands that they are putting out videos telling people how to avoid being shot by a trigger happy officer who sees everyone as a threat. How demeaning to have to put our hands outside of the window as if we’re some kind of criminal thug trying to prove we aren’t guilty of a crime. I remember when everyone was supposed to be treated with respect and as innocent. My position is if the police can’t approach a vehicle without thinking everyone is out to kill them, they really need to get another job. Granted, they should always be cautious, but not at the expense of citizen comfort. When did our safety become subordinate to theirs? This video teaches gun owners that they basically have no rights if a cop pulls them over. The fact is that someone who hands over their license to carry isn’t a threat to them and, therefore, cops have no right to disarm them. If anyone should be afraid, it should be the people. The Crime Prevention Research Center found that cops are ten times more likely to commit a crime than licensed gun owners and yet we are the ones being disarmed.
The Supreme Court needs to start protecting the constitution and the government.
Posted on October 25, 2017
This Month’s Obsession: Bump Stocks
If you’ve been following the fall-out from the Las Vegas Shooting, you may have seen a familiar pattern emerge. Instead of looking at the broader causes and events of that night, the Left have decided that rifles fitted with bump stocks are now solely to blame for it.
To hear the NY Times tell the story, the only use of bump stocks is to commit mass murder, and there is a large majority in the country who want them to be banned. It might be true that a lot of people now want them banned, but what national polls like this fail to take into account is the number of people who only heard of bump stocks this month.
That is, a lot of people don’t have any experience with actually owning or using firearms, and so they are susceptible to whatever liberal propaganda is flying around at that particular moment. Right now, they are told that bump stocks are evil. Last year it was large capacity magazines, next year it might be pistol scopes.
The Truth
In reality, banning bump stocks is not going to prevent mass shootings like that we saw in Las Vegas. I know I’m repeating an old argument, but it is one that bears repeating – if someone is determined to commit mass murder, legal restrictions on firearms are the last thing they are going to worry about.
Now, I’m not going to use this column to defend bump stocks on their own. I’ve never used one, and they remain a pretty niche item. Instead, and in order to combat the narrow focus of the left, let’s look at weapon modification more generally.
There has been a long and illustrious history of people modifying their own weapons, especially for hunting purposes. Rifles like the AR-15 are especially popular for this, and a huge range of after-market parts are available to adapt everything from the lower receiver to the caliber. Why do people spend hours modifying their guns? To make them better suited to their needs.
I’m not going to sit here and defend every single adaptation that can be made to a firearm. Some are undoubtedly done for less than noble reasons – to make a gun look more macho, or simply because the owner had too much time on their hands. But the vast majority of modifications are made so that a gun is easier to use, more effective, and ultimately safer.
And this is the point – that if we allow bump stocks to be banned, irrespective about how we personally feel about them, this will open the way for more regulation. You might think bump stocks are useless, but the choice and freedom to use them is worth defending.
The Problem
The issue here is one that comes up every time there is a well-publicized mass shooting. Not many people on the left actually own and use guns on an everyday basis, and so they lack a broad view of the issues they are talking about. Without basic knowledge of how people use guns, the left are very susceptible to myths – some would call them lies – about firearms.
The newest obsession is bump stocks, but you don’t have to look far to see similar campaigns. The current debate about de-regulating suppressors has been warped by another such myth: that suppressors are “silencers” that allow criminals to kill their victims silently. Anyone who has actually used a “silencer” will know that this is definitely not the case. Guns are incredibly loud, whether they are fitted with a suppressor or not.
With regard to bump stocks, a set of reactionary legislation is already being presented. The latest bill designed to ban their use is bi-partisan, a rarity nowadays, and it seems like the horror of Las Vegas might lead to this bill passing.
In some ways, this is understandable. The public demand that “something must be done”, and politicians rush to do “something”, irrespective of the actual outcome. Whatever side of the gun debate you are on, however, it is clear that such a narrow focus on a relatively benign rifle modification is no way to be making policy.
In short, I would argue that the left need to take a much broader view on gun control, and that this can only be done by talking to those who own and use weapons on an everyday basis. Only by doing this can we avoid the debate lurching from one narrow issue to the next.
Posted on October 21, 2017
Every Democrat is an “Empty Barrel”
Liberalism (progressivism) is a mental disorder. There’s simply no other way to explain it. This whole flap is over the phone call to families of the fallen, specifically the family of SSG Johnson, who were killed in Niger that President Trump recently made. First of all, a phone call from a president to the families of the fallen is extremely rare, so the fact that Trump even made phone calls is to be lauded. Or should be.
According to the douchebag Florida Representative, Frederica S. Wilson, Trump disrespected the Johnson by allegedly saying that “[Johnson] knew what he signed up for.” Everything depends on the intonation Trump used in that statement. For example, “He knew what he signed up for” in the sense of “that’s what you get for touching the hot stove” or the “He knew what he signed up for” in the sense of “he loved his country and was willing to give the full measure in its service.”
Let’s think about this logically for a second. Why would a president with so many things on his plate call and disrespect a Gold Star widow? It makes no sense. It’s illogical. And quite frankly, I doubt ANYONE in government would call a Gold Star widow in any way. Wilson is a race-baiting peddler of lies. She’s doing what Democrats and progressives do best: looking for any opportunity to be “offended” and hating anything “Trump.” These idiots don’t just get offended, they look for ways to be offended.
Don’t believe me? After General John Kelley spoke at a press briefing correctly labeling Wilson and “empty barrel,” Wilson and her race-baiters-in-waiting took to the airwaves to feign another round of racial indignity. Somehow, a military term for people who talk a big game but accomplish or say nothing of value is now a racist term. I’ve heard that term for 20+ of my active duty life on everyone regardless of skin color, religion, sex or rank. For those that don’t understand the phrase, let me flush it out for you.
I’ve had these Soldiers that were ass-kissers. When they’re around you, they are always trying to impress you in the hopes it will somehow further their career. Sometimes, they even claim the successes or accomplishments of others to make themselves look good. So, when they are nearby they are quick to tout their cause, but there is nothing behind it. Their claims are hollow or empty – like an empty barrel. A gun barrel can be a great thing, but it’s worthless if it’s not loaded or, as in this case, there is no substance.
This is why Kelley was 100% right when he called Wilson an “empty barrel.” She’s all barrel and no shot. How anyone with even a 1st grade level of common sense can find anything racist about that phrase is beyond me, but the Democrats are up in arms and jumping on the “I’m offended” racist bandwagon. I wouldn’t doubt that the Democrats sent Wilson to do their dirty work so that when she was criticized she could immediately play the race card. For progressives, everything is about race.
“Hey, what beautiful clouds!” “THAT’S RACIST!!!”
“Did you enjoy your weekend?” “RACIST!!”
Wilson isn’t the only “empty barrel” in Washington, D.C. There are at least 240 (I added in John McCain and Susan Collins) “empty barrels” in Congress. Heck, let’s be honest: there are really 535!