Because freedom.
So. Let us recap, shall we? The US federal government, expanding at breakneck speed through the bureaucracies, is increasing the number of drones it will be using for domestic surveillance — drones that can track cell phones and gauge whether citizens are armed and which are under the control of those who can’t tell us yet whether or not they believe they have the right to target a US citizen on US soil for death by drone. That same US government has driven up the cost of ammunition as it stockpiles for federal training purposes nearly all of the country’s .40 hollow point (which type of bullet legislators in at least two major localities wish to ban, despite it being mandatory for hunting in at least one of those localities). The police and government agents are exempted from bans on “high-cap” magazines, and are permitted to carry “assault weapons” — though when DHS requisitions them they are called Personal Defense Weapons (by class, more dynamic than “assault” rifles, having select-fire functionality), DHS agents being more deserving of personal protection options than the mewling masses, who need to stick to their function as economic units in service to the state. And the Vice President himself is counseling people to protect themselves (in illegal, reckless ways) with shotguns — even as western cowboy states like Colorado, whose Democratic legislators the Veep contacted and directed how to vote on proposed gun-control laws, and having been overrun in the legislature by progressive locusts, are trying to sneak through bans that would actually make many types of traditional pump-action shotguns illegal to own.
Is that about right?
But we needn’t worry. And in fact, we’re being slack-jawed paranoiacs whose hysterics over a non-existent attempt by government to take our guns is pitiful and unhelpful, NRO conservative summit speaker Joe Scarborough reminds us, through his very conservative sneers.
Sorry, but if you’re going to piss on my head and tell me it’s raining, the least you can do is hide the ladder and tuck away your junk. If for no other reason than plausible deniability.
Whereas this here? Is just plum arrogant.
(h/t geoff B, JD, charles A)
Precisely. Yet:
The Grand Old Establishment Party, like Scarborough, is agencied to the State when there is no passive agency for same, a condition predating this recent phenomenon by a couple centuries. It’s not like it’s a fucking mystery.
No longer part of a solution constitutes being an active party to the problem. Congratulations, boys.
Separating the person from the politics.
You don’t even have to read the Tea leaves to see that a new Party line is being pushed by the Ruling Class Party. Here’s a short version.
Better just to go preempt those Tim McVeigh types before they get their hands on that Ryder truck. For the children of course, isn’t everything?
Paranoiacs
End times are here. JD defends a person of minor stature.
Imagine a plot to undermine the government of the United States, to destroy much of its capacity to do the public’s business, and to sow distrust among the population.
Imagine further that the plotters infiltrate Congress and state governments, reshape their districts to give them disproportionate influence in Washington, and use the media to spread big lies about the government.
Finally, imagine they not only paralyze the government but are on the verge of dismantling pieces of it.
Far-fetched? Perhaps. But take a look at what’s been happening in Washington and many state capitals since Progressive fanatics gained effective control of the Democrat Party, and you’d be forgiven if you see parallels.
You think these pinheads will ever figure out that window to the future is a mirror?
geoffb,
Robert Reisssssch-uh is preaching the Obamarama flimflam to some seriously dim bulbs at Salon, I must say. The comments are a hoot.
=^D
(Reposted from the browbeating shrews thread, but seems more appropriate here.)
Hack the Drones
Not to pull the bullshit lever too hard, but there are lots of specs written this way more out of hope than out of realism, and what happens is the customer gets a system that does not in fact do what the spec requires.
MTS-B is a large-aperture system and so can gather a lot of light, but whether it can resolve a man-size image to tell whether that man is armed at any reasonable standoff range (>1 mile) remains to be seen.
Discriminating a rifle from a set of lopping shears at that kind of distance seems like it should be easy, but isn’t. Especially when the observation platform is 2 miles above the ground and looking down at a steep angle.
The exact wording from the document.
Be careful how you hold that rake.
I don’t think they are worrying to much about false positives.
That’s because they wouldn’t be one.
“Armed” and “holding a weapon” are apparently synonymous, in this version of the requirements.
…whereas carrying an RPG slung across the back means unarmed.
Evil & stupid, twofer!