Imagine the internal workings of the mind that looks at what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania over the weekend and concludes that it makes another wonderful argument for more limits on individual civilian gun rights. All you have to do is think about the circumstances of the assassination attempt for about 30 seconds to understand how truly deranged that is.
One of the most prominent people on the planet was being protected — more or less — by a phalanx of 15 to 20 people, paid for by the federal government, whose sole job it was to keep him alive. Yet Donald Trump is only breathing today because he happened to turn his head at just the right time.
Magnetometers. Body men. Overwatch sniper teams. State and local police augmenting the feds. Despite all of the planning, all of the manpower, and all of the gear, it wasn’t enough to prevent a glitched 20-year-old loner from squeezing off eight shots at the man at the center of a very big, allegedly sophisticated operation designed to keep that from happening.
None of that kind of dedicated security, of course, is available to the average Joe or Jane. We don’t have people who travel ahead to where we’re planning to be in order to scope out points of vulnerability. We don’t have skilled marksmen posted above, scanning the people around us in case someone looks like a threat, takes a rangefinder reading, or actually pulls a gun. We don’t have armed, ripped 230-pound escorts (and a few shorter, chunkier women) walking alongside us wherever we go.
Not only can 99.9999% of us not begin to afford that kind of protection, we wouldn’t want it if we could. It’s far too cumbersome, too constraining, too much of a limitation on our daily routine and lifestyle.
So we make do the best we can. Some choose to rely on luck and public services, hoping that 911 will be there and actually respond if and when they really need help. Tens of millions of others choose to avail themselves of their Second Amendment rights. They own firearms, hope to never use them, but recognize that if something or someone threatens them or their families, they’ll be their own first responder and have the tool(s) necessary to give themselves and decent chance of coming out on top.
The gun control industry, however, just can’t help themselves. They’re simply incapable of letting any high profile gun-related crime pass unremarked. For them, any news involving a firearm — even successful defensive gun uses — is a good opportunity to push their agenda and advocate once again for more limits on the right to keep and bear arms.
Most of the usual suspects have chimed in since Saturday, making many of the same mindlessly rote arguments in the same mindlessly rote ways. But leave it to a Harvard man to execute one of the most spectacular post-assassination attempt faceplants for all the world to see and marvel at.
It apparently takes an Ivy League education to look at the biggest Secret Service failure in a half century and conclude this is a good time to “start talking about the fucking guns.” Translation: ban some and limit the rights of those who own what’s left.
The United States government, with its limitless resources, just demonstrated for all the world to see that it is incapable of keeping a prominent, high value target safe. All the kings horses and all the kings’s men weren’t enough to protect the king’s biggest rival.
If there’s one lesson most rational people will draw from the (barely) failed Trump assassination attempt, it’s that the government simply cannot protect you. If they can’t protect Donald Trump with all of those men and their guns, they sure as hell do not have the ability to keep you or your family safe. If a squad of armed Secret Service agents can’t do it, what does anyone think the local police will be able to do for you?
That is exactly the reason there are now more than 100 million gun owners in this country. It’s also why there are about 22 million new gun owners in America since the 2020 Summer of Love and national urban criminal justice stand-down. It’s become abundantly clear to an increasing percentage of Americans that they’re on their own. Police do little more than mop-up and report-writing duty. The only people the average citizen can count on to ensure their safety and that of their families is themselves.
So once again, David Hogg, the pride of Cambridge, has looked at the world and drawn exactly the wrong conclusion. As George Orwell once said, “One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.”
We’re not sure any group that considers itself the intelligentsia would have David as a member, but his alma mater really should consider paying him to stay off of social media. Every time he tweets, he further erodes the value of a Harvard diploma.
King of the mental midgets…
Schrodinger’s Rifle: Simultaneously the most deadly thing ever, but completely useless for fighting tyranny.
Yup. High powered enough to “blow your lungs out”, and yet not suitable for deer in many states.
Luckily, the would-be-ass(assin) chose a Fortnight / Call-of-Duty headshot. He wasn’t using his most important tool….
There were already claims Trump was wearing body armor under his suit (a entirely believable claim) back in 2016. Entirely plausible that was a factor in picking headshot. Of course I’m not even sure we should assume cleaver chin firing hastily in response to being found by the local PD and using stolen DPMS that the shooter wouldn’t know the zero of (if it was even zeroed at all!) was actually aiming for the head and only narrowly missed. I think it’s actually more likely he aiming elsewhere and missed wildly.
Green tips.
At 130 yards, unless he’s wearing plates (and even then, we’re talking broken ribs, possible internal hemorrhaging, …). The shot was also from the side, not front. Not as much plate material there. Shoulder / arm access points are generally unprotected and do not move as much as heads (see Reagan).
Lol no especially not from 308 let alone 5.56 re broken ribs and worse unless we are talking super frail health. Positioning however is absolutely relevant and the areas outside of plate coverage are all blood loss risks even before the head is considered.
I’m told high value protectees like Trump typically are wearing UHMWPE (a/k/a polyethelene armor) — much, much lighter/cooler than plates + kevlar. It’s rated for rifles up to and including 7.62 NATO ball ammo.
Saw a demo of an UHMWPE vest at the very last TIFF. Vest actually floats, and the put a dummy in it and emptied full mags of 7.62×39 and 5.56 NATO into it at point blank range. Nothing got through (although of course a human being would have been beaten up pretty bad, as all that energy has to go somewhere).
It won’t stop steel core / armor piercing ammo or heavy duty stuff like .300 Win Mag., but then again what wearable armor does?
Adept colossus fairly easily (also 50bmg at around 500m) not saying it won’t hurt but the trauma involved with plates stopping rounds has become trivial compared to the 90’s and early 00’s (often because grunts took out the kevlar under the SAPI plates) The uhmwpe is great for a lot of things (except steel tip/core) but it is thick compared to the ceramic options for a lot less protection (and weight). The other part to remember is the civilian available plates are not the same materials as .mil/.gov only which can do the same job lighter and thinner or substantially more for same size.
Oh sorry missed your saying 300 win mag, for that unless someone hand loaded some AP bullet any lv 4/RF3 plate and many lv 3+/RF2 as well. Modern military plates (ESAPI rev j and later) start at the high end of level 4 with a kevlar backer. Buffman rage on YouTube is a wonderful data point without lab testing for this.
I keep pointing out it looks more like spray and pray than an intentional head shot. 8 shots, one nicked Trump (and could have killed him but for a providential head turn) but the other 7 hit bystanders or went off into the ether. Assuming that the ammo he bought the day before was what he use, he hadn’t zeroed the rifle with that ammo or perhaps at all.
All of that ‘expertise’ there, the ‘highly trained’ Secret Service and local cops, to protect one man and they failed to do it. Yet, a few million times a year across the United States the not so ‘expertise’ and/or not so ‘highly trained’ armed law abiding citizen use their firearms to successfully protect and defend them selves or loved ones or others against others that present a deadly threat, and sometimes they even stop a ‘mass shooting, from happening or stop one in progress.
It is disgusting that so many did so little to protect one(1) person, President Trump.
The Director of the SS failing to fully secure the building the shooter was on is a failure to do a complete job.
The roof was on it’s own, but the inside of the building was secure……..or so she said.
You can tell he means business because he’s cursing.
David Hogg is a pu$$y.
Not certain what exactly he was trying to convey in the picture above, but extreme constipation comes mind.
What’s amazing is that little Piggly Wiggly was able to grow a beard. Where did he buy the testosterone? And someone should teach him how to shave that scrawny neck although a straight razor could do a job more satisfactory to many of us.
Lazr,
Don’t insult p*ssies. Hogg getting into Harvard, and “graduating” is just further proof of the total degradation of ‘higher education’ in general, and the Ivy League, in particular.
We carry and train to protect ourselves and others from harm in the worst of circumstances even at home. Rural families have 4 legged and 2 legged varmints to contend with. Evil and danger have no specific time to search for their victims it’s all random and you have to be ready and able when law enforcement is 20-30 minutes away.
Same response to Hogg as the Firearms Policy Coalition had to the governor of Maine…
“If the Secret Service can’t keep the President safe …” has nothing to do with guns. It seems likely that the interagency crew responsible for security and response at the Butler rally couldn’t have kept the Prez safe from a trebuchet, crossbow, or large-caliber pea shooter.
Lemme get this straight – Hoggie says we need to ban AR-15s because a kid with a semi-auto AR intimidated 100 cops with full-auto M4s?
Very logical, David. Ironclad.
I have to toss in that the examination so far of the actions, plus the inactions, of the agencies and agents involved in protecting President Trump during the rally; plus their known and now confirmed actions against him in his first term, do raise the question of which side they were on in the incident.
Subotai Bahadur
Here is that wonderful Chinese lady running for Congress in New Hampshire, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DwmDkiv_4g, handing Mr. Hogg his butt. (which is good smoked, pun intended.)
Hogg’s belief, I think, is that if we ban civilian ownership of guns, then deranged and/or determined civilians will have no access to guns, therefore unauthorized shootings will not happen.
I didn’t say that it is an original, well-thought-out or intelligent belief.
The problem for Hogg’s Belief is that deranged and/or determined GOVERNMENT types will still have access to guns, meaning that unauthorized shootings will happen.
Woo Bum-Kon, South Korea, April 1982.
That doesn’t even begin to address the potential, probable even, increase in “authorized” shootings.
Keith Olbermann wannabe…
How many of those people who were screaming and pointing, trying to get Someone, Anyone, to stop The Guy on the Dangerously Sloped Roof with a Rifle would have shot him since nobody seemed able to notice a buncha people screaming and pointing?