January 24, 2019
By David Codrea
A “California bill would limit number of guns people can buy to one per month as state's new governor takes swipe at gun lobby,” CNBC reports . “A similar measure was vetoed last year by outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown.”
That’s saying something, to be too much “gun control” for Gov. Moonbeam, but it's not enough for Gavin Newsom who is nothing but an extremist’s extremist. He hates guns, or more accurately, hates armed citizens. When deployed by his security detail, he likes them just fine. After all, this was a guy who, when mayor of San Francisco, had taxpayers foot a $15K+ bill to have an armed police escort accompany him to his wedding in Montana. As lieutenant governor he was allocated $150K . And as governor, the California Highway Patrol Dignitary Protection Section is at his command.
We could do a “lather, rinse, repeat” for every gun-grabbing governor out there.
Pennsylvania’s Tom Wolf, busy trying to illegally kill preemption to make it easier to disarm citizens, has Pennsylvania State Troopers guarding him, albeit he had to replace the guy accused of beating his wife .
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In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy is intent on adding yet another Intolerable Act by upping permit “fees” on the guns they have not yet disallowed. Meanwhile, the New Jersey State Police Executive Protection Unit gives him 24/7 armed security.
New York’s Andrew Cuomo dreams up disarmament edicts like the Orwellian-named “SAFE Act” and gets approving media coverage participating in phony “die-ins” under the watchful protection of armed guards. Connecticut’s Dannell Malloy plots his next infringement as his security racks up over a million bucks in overtime .
We could go on, but the point is made. And inquiring gun owners want to know: Where are these gun-grabbers’ protectors and enforcers getting their guns from?
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The New Jersey State Police, the same outfit known to send gun confiscation crews out without warrants, uses Glock pistols.
The California Highway Patrol issues the Smith & Wesson M&P40 and “Each CHP patrol car is equipped with a Remington Model 870 Police Magnum 12-gauge shotgun and a SIG Sauer SIGM400 rifle in .223 Remington.”
The New York State Police arms its troopers with “Glock 21 Gen4s chambered in .45 ACP” and “Remington 870 patrol shotguns and Rock River Arms AR-15 "LAR-15 Tactical Entry Model" semi-automatic patrol rifles.”
Then there are the major cities, invariably run by anti-gun (for you) administrations.
Tactical-Life published “Police Sidearms: The Handguns of America’s 10 Largest Departments” last May, identifying guns authorized/issued by police department in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Houston, Detroit, D.C. Metropolitan, Dallas, Boston, and Miami-Dade. Firearm brands include Glock, Smith & Wesson, Sig Sauer, Springfield Armory, Beretta , Kimber, HK, and Ruger.
And then there’s ammunition. Here’s one prominent example per “Shooting Illustrated” :
“Speer’s latest in a long list of law-enforcement contracts was announced in July 2018,a five-year, up-to-$18 million agreement with the New York City Police Department for the purchase of the company’s 124-grain 9 mm Luger +P Gold Dot Duty ammunition. Late last year, the legendary ammo maker also signed a five-year deal with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration Customs Enforcement, to provide up to 120 million rounds of 9 mm 124-grain Gold Dot loads.”
NYPD are the folks that enforce the Big Apple’s notorious Sullivan Act , make obtaining a gun permit an exercise in red tape and prohibitive expense, and a carry permit an exercise in futility for all but the connected like Robert De Niro, Howard Stern, and Donald Trump.
Cities and states have another source of supply, the federal government via Defense Department military surplus . Case in point, let’s go back to the Garden State gun-grabbers:
“Among the gear currently held by state law enforcement agencies are 529 military-issue M16 assault rifles that went to 15 counties; 365 M14s, a rifle still used by Navy SEAL teams, sent to 17 New Jersey counties; night vision goggles and range finders able to find targets in the dark; dozens of Army Humvees and armored trucks; five bomb disposal robots; and a $412,000 mine-resistant, ambush-protected armored vehicle, known as an MRAP, meant for war zone patrols.”
I wrote a piece a few years back asking “What Would Happen if ‘Battle of Athens’ Round Two Ever Becomes Necessary? ” You might recall the situation where WWII veterans took up arms to resist a corrupt sheriff trying to steal an election. The authorities are now equipped with “grenade launchers, mine-resistant vehicles and guns that have been deemed as surplus by the Pentagon.” Had the vets been met by militarized forces with such capabilities, the story could have ended quite differently.
And it could again, everywhere, in Everytown. That’s a lot of state, county and urban law enforcement personnel that are armed to the teeth and capable of being deployed to enforce current or coming due process-denying “red flag confiscation laws” and the like.
Speaking of the Feds, Forbes ran a piece a while back asking “Why Are Federal Bureaucrats Buying Guns and Ammo? $158 Million Spent By Non-Military Agencies.”
“The 2,300 Special Agents at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are allowed to carry AR-15’s, P90 tactical rifles, and other heavy weaponry,” we are told. We’re shown similar capabilities by the Small Business Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, Education, Interior, Treasury, and Agriculture.
Those are in addition to the FBI, BATFE, the U.S. Marshals Service, the DEA, the Bureau of Prisons...
That’s a lot of armed feds. If curious, check out the Federal Procurement Data System website (https://www.fpds.gov/). You can search for terms such as “rifle” or “ammunition,” and the top 10 agencies will come up, and then click on any one to see its purchases.
Then, of course, once they’ve got the weapons they’ll need training. Helping significantly with that is the National Rifle Association ’s Law Enforcement Division, “established ... specifically to provide the law enforcement community with a means to certify law enforcement firearm instructors.” Restricted to “’sworn’ law enforcement officers,” retirees, licensed armed security, active military and “full-time civilian firearm instructors ... employed by a public law enforcement agency,” courses include such topics as Handgun, Handgun/Shotgun, Tactical Shooting, Tactical Shotgun, Patrol Rifle, Select-Fire, and Precision (Scoped) Rifle.
We’ve wandered far from “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,” have we not? Likewise, George Mason’s observation that “They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers” seems lost, especially now that the enforcers seem more reminiscent of the “swarms of public officers” noted in the Declaration.
It’s fair to ask how many will ignore their oaths and participate in citizen disarmament like we saw during Hurricane Katrina and in numerous examples since then. Have the lessons of “just following orders” been forgotten, assuming they were ever taught? How many even consider the concept of “lawful orders” from command, especially when, as far as they know, the Gavin Newsom or Andrew Cuomo infringement du jour is “the law”?
And how are the companies we gun owners patronize and the organizations we are members of facilitating the arming and training of those who will confiscate as ordered, using an escalating continuum of force to ensure compliance?
So what do “we” do about it?
For one, we can be grateful to and supportive of manufacturers like Barrett and Hornady , both of which have very publicly told gun-grabbing officials they refuse to do business with them. A few years back, The Blaze noted “Now 44 Gun Companies Have Stopped Selling to Law Enforcement in Anti-2nd Amendment States.”
Is it realistic to expect companies to turn down lucrative law enforcement deals? Probably not, because the activist portion of gun owners is but a fraction of the total population, those selling to enforcement agencies inarguably make some of the finest guns in the market, and the citizen militia system needed to take up the slack has been suppressed by a political design that in turn has been allowed by apathy. But what we can do is be aware of who’s involved in such deals, use what sway as customers that we have to influence corporate decision-making, individually boycott those companies we take umbrage with, and importantly, to patronize the enterprises that have taken a public stand on the side of “We the people” even when it affects their bottom lines.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.In addition to being a regular featured contributor for
Firearms News and
AmmoLand Shooting Sports News , he blogs at
“The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on
Twitter: @dcodrea and
Facebook .
[Editor’s Note: In addition to CA, the states of MA, VT, NY, NJ , FL, MD, and WA have seriously infringed the Second Amendment during President Donald Trump’s first two years in office, and there has not been any comment from the president or from his staff regarding states destroying the Second Amendment, with the exception of Trump’s support of former Florida Governor Rick Scott’s gun control measures.
