"On RUMINT"

Tamara has an excellent post (cross-post, I guess) up titled "On RUMINT".

As a former secret-squirrel type, I cannot recommend this highly enough. 

In the SIGINT world, we used to indicate phrases we weren't sure of in our gist by indicating the validity of a word or phrase by writing "(%A VAL)" or "(%B VAL)" after it.

Most of the rumors I'm hearing these days amount to about a %Q VAL.

No, the Stafford Act does not give the president the authority to declare martial law.

No, the National Guard is not being Federalized and mobilized to enforce lock down nation-wide. 

If you heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend... it's probably BS.

#Paris, more

Mostly courtesy Instapundit, again.
The jihadis’ master plan to break us | New York Post
Good stuff there.

The Islamic State’s message is stark: Western civilization is doomed. Its last bastion, America, lacks the will for war. The infidel loves life and treats it as an endless feast. Jihadis have to ruin that feast and persuade the “infidel” to abandon this world in exchange for greater rewards in the next.

ISIS calling | Power Line
Ditto.

One {thing that stood out} was that the attacks in Paris were coordinated by a cell operating from a neighboring country*. The attackers were divided into two groups, one that was assigned to suicide missions and one that was assigned to escape. That’s not the normal M.O. and the cops are asking why the change. Several did escape. At least one got to a neighboring country. The logical conclusion is that the escapees were being saved for “the next big thing.”

‘Anonymous’ Hackers Declare War on ISIS in Video Message.
Good for them.

Lots of speculation along these lines: Next Big Future: France could commit the foreign legion to Syria and could invoke NATO Article 5 requiring joint NATO action
Which would be real interesting when Turkey has to fish or cut bait...

Also, from that article:

The revelations that at least four French citizens were involved in the attacks — three brothers and a man who lived around Chartres, about 60 miles southwest of Paris — seemed destined to exacerbate longstanding fears in France about the place of Muslim immigrants and converts in French society. 

A France-U.S. Anti-Islamist Alliance - WSJ
(To read a WSJ article without subscribing, Google the title.)

{I}magine if Paris had joined the Americans in the invasion of Iraq; the now-dominant Western narrative of that conflict might have been very different. Because of the attacks Friday, the narrative will change. The soft-power-heavy, somewhat guilty Western analysis of Islamic militancy—where the progressive-minded avoid referring to Islam in describing an antipathy that sanctifies killing—is now dead in Europe and will soon be irretrievably embarrassing across the Atlantic.

President Obama’s inability to have an adult conversation about Islam’s manifest problems with modernity, which also tore Christianity apart, have kept the West’s loudest bully pulpit from provoking contentious and entirely appropriate debates among Muslims. The advancement in the Middle East of grand modern causes—the abolition of slavery, the slow march of women’s social and political rights, the expansion of education, the brutal tug of war between secularism and religion—has always been stirred by Western thought and actions.

Having the French more vigorously in this game will help compensate for the politically correct, ahistoric timidity that has seized much of the intelligentsia in the U.S. and Britain. Trailblazers in analyzing modern Islamic fundamentalism, the French could well rescue the American left from its fixation on Islamophobia. They could provide encouragement and cover to American liberals to reflect and act without fear of being labeled Islamophobes (who are a dime a dozen on the American right and, as handmaidens of isolationism, don’t matter).

 How comforting: ISIS Has Help Desk for Terrorists Staffed Around the Clock - NBC News
I can't help but think this represents an exploitable weakness...

When you've lost Diane Feinstein: Paris attacks: Dianne Feinstein breaks with Obama, says 'ISIL is not contained' - POLITICO

***

*Belgium.

Coming Soon! Son of I-594!

So, it has already been confirmed that Bloomberg's Minions have started the process of pushing an I-594 clone in Nevada.

In the meantime, the mask comes off:

• Tougher gun-purchase background checks win handily | Politics Northwest | Seattle Times
• Big winners: gun control and Mayor Ed Murray | Local News | The Seattle Times

I thought Initiative 594 was a "common sense gun safety measure", not gun control!

Plus:

•  I-594 supporters will make push in Olympia for stronger gun laws | Local News | The Seattle Times
• Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Gun-safety advocates deliver post-I 594 message: We’re not done
• Post-election statements have some interesting perspectives - Seattle gun rights | Examiner.com

So, they're not done, they plan on following I-594 up with further gun control laws. The only thing legislative proposal announced so far is a bill to make it a crime to leave a gun where a minor can access it, which ignores the fact that this is already covered under the states "reckless endangerment" law.

Statements made however, include (quoting from the last link above, which in turns is quoting from comments left to a Seattle Times story)

"What about the millions of guns already in the hands of private citizens? There needs to be an amnesty period for citizens to turn in their guns. A reasonable buy back price can be offered for the guns that are turned in. After that possession of guns should be punishable with jail sentence.
"...Gun laws won't work if they are aimed at limiting criminals because they will just ignore the law." {Duh. Thank you for supporting our point. DWD}
"...Gun laws need to be uniform throughout the country. Per-city or per-state laws banning guns will never work because our cities and states are not fenced in, and guns will flow in from other states. And the NRA will use such laws to ‘prove’ that gun laws don't reduce crime. The solution is to implement the same laws throughout the country.”

Based on that and on general RUMINT says we can expect to see in the near future:

• "Assault weapon ban
• "High capacity" assault magazine clip ban
•  Safe storage laws, with strict liability. Goes hand in hand with the legislation announced above. Wouldn't be surprised if it included inspections.

Plus I anticipate:

• "Buy-backs". Without an option.  And without collectors offering more than the State.
• Open carry ban.
• Training and qualification requirement for carry permit.
• Medical/mental health checks for carry permits.
• Ending of state preemption, leading to:
• Restrictions on where you can carry/easing of "posting" requirement.
• "Green" ammo requirements.
•  Ranges and clubs being shut down -- already an issue in some areas.
• An end to "gravel pit" shooting, i.e., shooting in a safe space on public (or private) land.
•  Recent authorizations of SBRs and suppressors going away.

Now, the Washington State state legislature has always been a tough nut to crack for gun control, and if anything just got a little more "red", so they m,ay have a tough row to hoe.

But they have gazillions of bucks to spend, and a willingness to spend it, and the media moguls are on their side.

And your state in their sights, too.

Wild west! Vigilante justice! Blood in the street!

Instapundit » Blog Archive » THE ANTIGUN PEOPLE ALWAYS PREDICT A BLOODBATH, BUT IT NEVER HAPPENS: After passing concealed-carry law, Chicago has lowest murder rate since 1958.
But we knew that was going to happen...

Dear Guns and Ammo magazine

I have two words for you:

• Zumbo 
• Recoil

Now fix it, or piss off.

WTF? of the week

New York Times shows sympathy for Boston terrorist suspects | The Daily Caller

I feel so sorry for the poor babies...

"One piece of fascist legislation, to go"

Denny Westneat: Dems keep shooting themselves in foot | Local News | The Seattle Times

Is there some gremlin that creeps into the Democrats’ bill-writing room to slip in nutty, unconstitutional clauses?
As it turns out, in a sense, there is. It’s part of an increasingly popular, fast-food-franchise-like practice called “model legislation.” Special-interest groups write up their dream bills and then shop them to statehouses around the country.

Which would explain why almost identical legislation pops up in multiple states.

What leads to this issue, of course, is the recent "assault weapon" ban bill introduced in Olympia, Senate Bill 5737, which has been introduced several times, and each time included a provision calling for home invasions inspections by the county sheriff to make sure you have no unauthorized guns, and what you do have are stored in accordance with whatever nanny-state rules.

The idiots responsible claim they had no idea that provision was there.

So ... why does it keep coming up? Is there some gremlin that creeps into the Democrats’ bill-writing room to slip in nutty, unconstitutional clauses?
As it turns out, in a sense, there is. It’s part of an increasingly popular, fast-food-franchise-like practice called “model legislation.” Special-interest groups write up their dream bills and then shop them to statehouses around the country.
...This police-search provision came from a left-wing version — a model assault-weapons ban written by the Brady Campaign and the San Francisco-based Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Our bill tracks almost word for word with bills introduced in 2004 in Michigan and a few other states, as well as in 2005 here. At the time, the gun-control group had put out a 73-page guide called “Banning Assault Weapons — A Legal Primer for State and Local Action” in which it offered sample language, including this same police-search provision.

Sheesh.  Can you imagine the uproar if legislation written by the NRA was being debated?

Good news, close to home

King County sheriff denies request from NY firm for names of CPL holders - Seattle gun rights | Examiner.com

Oddly, for such a deep blue county*, the King County Sheriff's Office is and has been pretty good on firearms rights.


*Mostly due to Seattle.  If the rest of King County were to secede from Seattle, the 'burbs would probably turn out to be closer to the "ROY" end of the scale than the BIV.

Well said, sir, well said

D-bag extraordinaire Piers Morgan recently, on air on CNN, sneeringly referred to the Constitution of the United States of America as "that little book." Now, Mr. Morgan--who is, be it noted, a subject of the British Crown--is already the center of controversy, largely due to the fact that he is

1. A D-bag extraordinaire who is
2. A British Crown subject, who nevertheless 
3. Feels qualified and entitled to come on our TV and criticize our Right to Bear Arms

So I am probably not alone in simply deriding Mr. Morgan for being the pommie D-bag he is, and trying to ignore his bloviations.

Edward von Bear at doubleplusundead has a few more things to say to Mr. Morgan at In Defense of a Little Book.

Warning: Language not suitable for work, school, church, or use in front of your mother. 

But oh, so suitable when directed at smug furriners like Piers Morgan.

Ted's my homeboy!

Dave Workman reports:  Nugent cleared, Coulter nails Democrats over racist gun laws - Seattle gun rights | Examiner.com

"The Secret Service interview of Ted Nugent has been completed. The issue has been resolved. The Secret Service does not anticipate any further action."—Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary

And it's amazing how, when I tell people that I went to the same high school Ted Nugent did, they just smile and nod and mutter things like "As if we couldn't guess..."

 Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz feigned shock and offense at Nugent’s remarks, and “Uncle Ted” promptly fired right back, calling her a “brain-dead, soulless, heartless idiot.” That’s Nugent for you: offending genuine brain-dead idiots by lumping Wasserman Schultz in with their lot.

He graduated about 10 years before me, but they were still talking about him when I was there.  Of course, he and the Amboy Dukes were fairly successful by that time...

Justice, of sorts

In a sort of follow up to last week's post New Tone Of Civility, in action, we learn that the "star" of a video that made the rounds, of a TV news crew from Portland being cussed at and threatened by a longshoreman, has been arrested after being identified, partly thanks to that video, on several charges related to the breaking into the terminal that day.

I won't link that video directly--it's in that article linked to above--but I'm pretty sure he's not going to want to use the nom de guerre he gave in it...

They don't make 'em like that anymore...

They certainly don't name 'em like that, either.

Newspapers.

Reading a book titled Fighting For Paradise, by Kurt R. Nelson, which is a military history of the Pacific Northwest, I learn that the very first newspaper in the Pacific Northwest was the grandiloquently named Flumgudgeon Gazette and Bumblebee Budget.

Which was written out longhand.  

As you might imagine, it only lasted a few weeks, a dozen or so editions of the tri-weekly, each of which only included a few dozen copies.

Ghu knows, if I had been doing it there would only have been one, and no one would have been able to read it...