Vin Suprynowicz

(A version of this column appears in the Oct. 10 edition of Firearms News — previously Shotgun News — on newsstands now.)

What’s it like when a people have allowed their own government to completely disarm them . . . . . and then that government turns around and admits tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of young male Muslim immigrants from primitive backwaters who look at normally-clad Western women — out in the streets “unescorted” without being wrapped head to toe in black burkas — the way a pack of wolfhounds looks at a platter of T-bone steaks unattended on the picnic table?

(Do a Web search for “rapes by Muslim refugees,” or visit my own, recent post on “too much tolerance?” at https://vinsuprynowicz.com/?p=3413 . Look a little harder, and you’ll actually find Muslim spokesmen and enablers (including lady mayors) saying such women deserve to be raped -– in Germany, and Sweden, and Norway, and Finland -– for failing to dress up like mummies, as required by “Sharia Law.” Start with http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261380/cologne-mayor-victims-migrant-sex-assaults-you-robert-spencer , moving on from there to http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/260275/muslim-rape-misunderstandings-come-europe-daniel-greenfield .)

Not only that, we now learn the radical Islamic terrorists who killed hundreds in a series of coordinated attacks in France a year ago, snuck into the country disguised as . . . “refugees.” (
http://www.foreigndesknews.com/lisas-desk/majority-paris-attackers-entered-europe-posing-refugees/ .)

In the “That’s pathetic” department, as natives race to defend themselves from this massive wave of gang assaults by “refugees,” multiple news sources now report German dealers are completely out of pepper spray, while tens of thousands of Germans are racing to get permits to buy handguns that . . . (wait for it) . . . fire blanks.

“As of June 2016, there were 402,301 small arms carry permits in the National Weapons Register,” the Interior Ministry said, according to Die Welt.

This figure is almost 50 percent higher than last year. But here’s the kicker: “Small arms carry permits, or ‘Kleiner Waffenschein’ in German, are restricted to non-lethal self-defense weapons, such as blank-firing and gas pistols, and flare guns”!

Read it and weep: https://www.rt.com/news/354061-germany-weapons-licenses-increase/ .

(Who’s facilitating the stealth conquest of Germany via admission of millions of violent Muslim rioters, rapists , and layabouts who -– far from wishing to assimilate and become Germans –- vow to convert all Europe into a “Muslim state under Sharia law”? Chancellor Angela Merkel. Who’s the “favorite foreign leader” of Hillary Clinton, who favors the unlimited establishment of Muslim colonies in America, and says an Australian-style gun confiscation here is “worth a look”? . . . Gee, um, let me see. Oh, that’s right. . . .

‘OPERATION CHOKE POINT’

It may be old news to some, but let’s not let a presidential election slip past without recalling just how corrupt and sneaky these Democratic weasels can be, using their regulatory powers to try and shut down the legitimate commerce in arms -– something they could never accomplish if they simply stood up and proposed a straightforward vote on disarming us.

The Obama administration has still not made a clean breast of what they were up to -– or convinced us they’ve stopped -– with the regulatory operation known as “Operation Choke Point,” the 2013-2014 initiative designed to destroy several perfectly legal industries of which the East Coast liberal elite disapproves, including “payday lending,” “pawn shops,” and (of course) gun dealers, by “choking off” their ability to maintain commercial bank accounts.

“It turned out there was a list created by a Justice Department program called Operation Choke Point,” Fox News reported back on Jan. 16, 2015. “The list equates legal gun sellers . . . with escort services, Ponzi schemes, people who sell cable TV de-scramblers — and at least 30 other industries” that the Obama administration sought to destroy. (And they wonder why the Obama administration has a little problem with “job creation”?)

The program, which supposedly faced tough questioning in Congress (though we haven’t yet seen any bank regulators indicted) is designed to intimidate banks with the threat of heightened scrutiny and increased audits – even subpoenas — unless they shut down the bank accounts of those industries.

Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., said Operation Choke Point began as a means of combating fraudulent businesses, but evolved into an arbitrary list of businesses targeted by bureaucrats in the DOJ and banking regulators purely on “moral” grounds (or perhaps they allowed commerce in untracked cash -– V.S.), backed by no legislation.

“What they’ve done is they put short-term lenders out of business, gun dealers out of business, ammunition manufacturers out of business. Because in America, if you can’t bank, you can’t do business,” Duffy told Michael Tobin of Fox News.

Mike Schuetz of Hawkins Guns in Northern Wisconsin became suspicious that something strange was happening after his local credit union notified him his account would be closed, Fox News reports. So he concealed an audio recorder and visited his credit union.

A manager and then a regional manager told Schuetz the credit union wanted his business, but he had indeed been placed on a list of “high risk” industries.

Fox News found several more businesses — from payment processors to ammunition dealers to pawn shop owners to short-term lenders — who all had their bank accounts closed. In response to an inquiry from Fox News, a spokesman for the DOJ wrote, “We do not target businesses operating within the bounds of the law, and we have no interest in pursuing or discouraging lawful conduct.”

Congressman Duffy of Wisconsin responds “That’s a bald-faced lie.”

Brian Wise, of the U.S. Consumer Coalition, pointed out the FDIC sits on the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, which is the driving force of Operation Choke Point and is chaired by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Also, starting in August of 2013, the DOJ issued subpoenas to banks and payment processors.

The spokesman claimed the FDIC has since rescinded the “high-risk merchants” list.

Wise, with the Consumer Coalition, says there are hundreds and even thousands of businesses across the nation who have had bank accounts closed, and they may not even know their bank was intimidated by Operation Choke Point. “This is one of the greatest abuses of power that the country has never heard of,” Wise said.

So, if you’re concerned about gun rights, it’s obvious you have only two choices at the polls next month. It’s either Republican Donald Trump (who has a concealed carry permit, who thinks teachers who undergo some safety training should be armed, and who says “gun-free zones are target practice for the sickos and for the mentally ill,” or else . . . what’s that? I see my researcher waving her arms in the air to get my attention; something about watching a video of an August interview with Libertarian vice-presidential candidate Bill Weld. And . . . Oh dear. It looks like we may have to make that “only one choice” . . .

WILLIAM WELD, CREATIVE GUNSMITH

On August 3, 2016, the Libertarian candidate for vice president and former Massachusetts Governor William Weld, was interviewed by the small-time outfit REVOLT TV.

REVOLT TV political Correspondent Amrit Singh asked candidate Weld about guns. (Find the relevant clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnc_v9ZuEls or at http://www.guns.com/2016/08/12/libertarian-vp-nominee-william-weld-is-kinda-anti-gun-video/ .)

Former Gov. Weld explained “The five shot rifle, that is a standard military rifle, the problem is if you attach a clip to it that holds more shells and if you remove the pin so that it becomes an automatic weapon, and those are independent criminal offenses. That is when they become, essentially, a weapon of mass destruction. The problem with handguns probably is even worse than the problem of the AR15.”

Amrit Singh then asks “What can you do to help control this flow of guns, if anything?”

William Weld responds: “You shouldn’t have anybody who is on the terrorist watch list buy any gun at all.”

Now, I’m not an attorney; I wouldn’t want to give legal advice to readers who live in varying jurisdictions. I make no claim to keep track of every bizarre violation of the 2nd and 14th Amendments that may be enacted by the legislative bodies of such gun-grabbing enclaves as Chicago, the state of California, and Washington, D.C. So please consult with a knowledgeable attorney or gunsmith in your bailiwick before making any alterations to your (presumably) legal firearms.

But, having said that, is Bill Weld nuts?

Mr. Weld served as a federal criminal prosecutor from 1986 to 1988, and as governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997, changing his tune to sign into law in 1993 a package of useless and unconstitutional gun control measures which he had previously told voters he’d oppose, including a ban on normal-sized magazines, and a ban on semi-automatic rifles with certain cosmetic features which Dianne Feinstein considers “scary-looking.” He’s surely had plenty of time to study the gun laws he spent years enforcing or even creating.

But rifles with a five-cartridge capacity haven’t been “standard military issue” since about 1942, by which time the 8-shot, semi-automatic Garand had replaced the 5-shot, 1903 Springfield and 1917 Enfield for all American front-line uses. The Germans and Russians and British continued to use manual turn-bolt Mauser K-98s and Moisin-Nagants and .303 Enfields (the Enfield has a 10-round internal magazine) until about 1950, though by 1944 most of their troops were also switching to semi-automatic or “self-loading” rifles or low-cost machine pistols of various types when they could get them.

Removing the floorplate of a pre-1943, 5-shot manual turn-bolt rifle and replacing it with a larger magazine (not a “clip”) isn’t “a separate criminal offense” where I live. It’s not a “criminal offense,” at all. In fact, a 20-round extended mag for the K-98 is called a “trench magazine,” and they’re pretty readily available. Since the size of the magazine in no way changes the one-shot-per-trigger-pull operation of such a manual turn-bolt rifle, the tradeoff for such increased capacity is that you’d be making it more awkward to fire the rifle from a prone position, but this is not a “crime” in most jurisdictions.

Even weirder is the assertion that “If you remove the pin . . . it becomes an automatic weapon.”

Please, Bill, could you show us a diagram explaining what “pin” I can remove to (illegally) turn my 1903 Springfield -– or, for that matter, even a modern, legal, semi-automatic AR-15 -– into a heavily regulated, Class III machine gun?

But even this bizarre rambling pales next to Gov. Weld’s assertion that the federal government can and should ban firearms purchases by anyone who’s on a “terrorist watch list.”

Terrorism is -– well, sorry, “terrible.” But this is not a list of people who have been accused of a crime, notified of the charges against them, and then provided a due-process opportunity to confront their accusers and insist that someone prove them guilty of anything. No, such lists are merely thrown together by some non-elected federal bureaucracy, often the infamous, blue-gloved, crotch-groping “TSA.”

If they felt like it, what’s to stop some future government gun-grabbers from deciding the entire membership rolls of Gun Owners of America, or Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, or even the National Rifle Association, should be placed on the “terrorism watch list”?

WHICHEVER WAY THE WIND BLOWS

Bill Weld doesn’t get to claim this is just some “slip of the tongue.” He’s been at this for years. Way back on Oct. 1, 1993, the New York Times reported:

“With voters growing increasingly fearful of gunfire on the streets, Gov. William F. Weld of Massachusetts reversed course this week and proposed some of the most stringent gun control laws in the country.

“Mr. Weld, a Republican who will run for re-election next year, called for a statewide ban on assault weapons — a proposal he opposed during his 1990 campaign — as well as a waiting period for buying handguns and a prohibition on handgun ownership by anyone under 21.”

(As usual, pardon me for pausing to point out that when the New York Times refers to “assault weapons,” they don’t mean assault weapons. They mean semi-automatic, one-shot-per-trigger-pull rifles and shotguns, including the 1936 M-1 Garand and the 1942 M-1 carbine.)

“His proposed legislation would also limit the number of handguns an individual could buy and would impose tough penalties for illegal gun sales and gun-related crimes.”

“The purpose of this common sense legislation is to remove deadly guns from our streets and to take weapons out of the hands of many teens who themselves are becoming deadly killers,” the Governor told the Times.

“As a candidate three years ago, Mr. Weld’s position on gun control had won him the endorsement of the Gun Owners’ Action League, a local lobbying group affiliated with the National Rifle Association,” The Times reported -– again, back in ’93. “And while many law enforcement officials this week praised his turnaround, his critics charged that the Governor was acting out of political expediency.”

Michael D. Yacino, the executive director of the Gun Owners’ Action League, said his group had been betrayed by the Governor, who is an avid hunter and owns four shotguns. “He broke his word to us,” Mr. Yacino told the Times. “I really can’t stand a liar. I don’t know why he’s done such a complete turnaround.”

The governor’s spokesman, Ray Howell, told the Times that the governor had not so much reversed his stance, as moderated it. Earlier, he said, the Governor had “thought gun control a less critical component” than imprisoning criminals. “He has supported the Brady Bill from its inception,” Mr. Howell added. . . .”

Thus ends today’s reading from The New York Times.

A man who’s supposedly “an avid hunter who owns four shotguns” believes a lot of Massachusetts “teens” were committing murder with “assault rifles”? Such is my admiration for American inventor John Moses Browning that I’d love to own a Browning Automatic Rifle -– a true assault rifle. But in my lifetime, thanks to the unconstitutional BATF ban on new manufacture or re-importing, the price of one of those things has gone up from about $6,000 to over $20,000. And the original true “assault rifle,” the German Fallschirmjagergewehr-42? Currently estimated by the Rock Island Auction Co. at $160,000 to $240,000. Start saving up your lunch money, teen-agers.

Just for good measure, Gov. Weld also volunteers, unsolicited, near the end of his little interview with Amrit Singh, that the party most likely to split in two in the current campaign is the Republican Party, adding with a smile, “It’s happened before, but one faction went on the elect Abraham Lincoln, so it’s a happy ending.”

Electing the worst tyrant in American history, who launched a war to conquer the Southern states despite the fact the Constitution gave him no authority to do so, who jailed Maryland state legislators without trial because he feared they might vote to secede, who caused the deaths of 600,000 Americans (read Thomas DiLorenzo) was “a happy ending”?

And the Libertarian Party, at the behest of its recycled presidential nominee, Republican Gary Johnson (who admits he doesn’t even own a firearm, and who showed us how he really feels about the “eye teeth of liberty” when he unceremoniously dumped a replica of George Washington’s flintlock pistol in the trash moments after winning his party’s nomination ( http://www.ammoland.com/2016/06/libertarian-candidate-gary-johnson-throws-gift-gun-in-garbage/#axzz4Lkm6bpOb ), wants this guy to be one heartbeat away from the presidency of the United States.

I’m sorry, I’ve voted for the Libertarian Party’s nominee in every presidential election at least since 1992, but if you’re concerned about gun rights, or if you want to see some limits placed on the no-questions-asked importation of millions more jihadi Muslim mass murders and gang rapists and “honor killers” — or especially if you’re concerned about both those issues — I don’t see any presidential ticket at this point that could give you any hope but that of Donald Trump and his running mate, that exemplary gun-rights supporter (including support for national reciprocity for concealed carry), the NRA A-rated Governor of Indiana, Mike Pence.

Vin Suprynowicz, the award-winning former columnist and editorial writer for the daily Las Vegas Review-Journal, blogs at www.vinsuprynowicz.com.