Passive protection. The ability to use non-violent means to defend yourself, much like the use of seatbelts or the active use of fire suppression devices. Objects in and of themselves that cannot harm others without a devilishly clever manipulation of the device(s). Imagine a country or class of people who finds these items not only offensive but threatening in and of themselves.
Hence the latest round of outrageously silly notions to outlaw the use of body armor by normal citizens and mundanes in America. Anyone not in the elect tribe of police or military or other accredited government groups who need the means to defend themselves from harm.
HR 378 seeks to ban possession of body armor for civilians in America. Yet another malum prohibitum law that is a solution in search of a problem. More cynical observers see it as a means for the government to make it even easier for modern American police to continue their killing spree they have been on for decades. The body of the bill makes no hint whatsoever of why this is such an important item to consider but knowing how the mandarins in DC works, this is something to be dusted off if the proper response to rampant police brutality ever emerges and yet another menu selection for the US legal prosecutoriat to use to throw people in dungeons for daring to resist the cascading predations on liberty by the central government.
Jay Syrmopoulos has done a nice job of pointing out the lethal silliness of the entire notion.
“The armor is purely defensive in nature, and people should always have the ability and right to defend themselves against attack.
The right to self-defense is the right from which all other rights are derived. As John Locke stated, self-defense is the first law of nature. Each person owns his or her own life and no other person has a right to take that life, or hinder the preservation thereof.
The Supreme Court has held that the police have no duty to protect citizens, so that responsibility now falls squarely on the shoulders of individuals themselves.
To take away people’s ability to access defensive armor, after telling them that they are on their own and are owed no protection by law enforcement, almost seems like a cruel joke.
Why should a law-abiding American, that takes steps to defend themselves passively, be criminalized?
Interestingly, government employees and personnel who work for the various government agencies, departments, or “political subdivisions” are exempted in the bill.”
You’ll even note in this FBI study that less than five percent of active shooters employ body armor and the storied incident in LA was more a function of extraordinarily poor police marksmanship than total protection of the perpetrators. Please note that the FBI has taken such a credibility hit in the last decade that one should examine the data and come to your own conclusions considering that the FBI will analyze the evidence to skew it in the government’s best interest which is always the people’s worst. They have re-flagged their mission to national security and become a US variation of the Soviet Cheka in all but name now. This simply means the mask has dropped and one can see the true nature of the organization. This may explain its tendency to bait and switch homegrown terrorist incidents. The antics have certainly tarnished the reputation of the agency but like all government bureaucracies they begin to believe their own fairly tales that their lives are sacrosanct and more important than the citizens in the feedlot they lord over. They begin to look at themselves as zookeepers.
If you examined the state arguments against body armor, firearms suppressors and weapons in general, they tend to focus on the protection of innocents as a collateral responsibility to the all-important task of protecting their precious enforcers. Because absent police and their methods, no political tyranny of any stripe on the spectrum could be enforced. None. This may be one of the reasons attending not only the sordid history of police violence at every level against the subject population in the US but the actual perceived influence of the brutality. I would suggest that police abuse of power and the citizenry has always been astronomical but the evil trifecta of police unions, officer safety provisions and qualified immunity has kept it out of the public eye. Then again the police investigate themselves in alliance with the Federal legal complex which is a revenue generating machine of Biblical proportions; it feeds the gaping maw of the American gulag system in what is essentially the largest political prisoner population in the world since more than 80 percent of inmates in the Federal system are non-violent offenders of malum prohibitum laws.
As I alluded to earlier, the sheer audacity of government to declare no duty to protect and then to work tirelessly to reduce the amount and methodology of protection is mind boggling and morally debased.
Like the silly cosmetically offensive weapons bans of Bushevik I and prohibitions on the books brought to you by both parties, all based on specious reasons. What makes body armor so evil from the state perspective? It diminishes the ability of the state’s agents to maim or kill quickly their intended target. As history has demonstrated, these potential victims will always end up being enemies of the state if not for the sole reason of refusing to bend a knee to authority or instigating rebellion or plotting insurrection or other such four letter words that make a statist fill their pants in abject fear. Fear and obedience are the brick and mortar of the state and the collectivists are the stonemasons. This is not about public safety, this is only about protecting the armed thuggery and mischief of a government that has grown accustomed to regulating every human transaction in its tax jurisdiction among its cattle.
Of course, the police are in danger. Look at their behavior. Newton’s Third Law is ironclad and applies equally to the political sphere where hundreds of states have perished in history after pushing their Helot populations to the brink. Police are the pointy end of all politics no matter the flavor of government supremacism.
Body armor makes citizens harder to kill or injure. That is a problem for big government because they don’t want armored tax denizens on the preserve. They want to stack the deck in favor of zoo-keeping and prole management to the best extent possible.
So the public can’t have passive protection? Will this nonsense extend to seat-belts and fire extinguishers?
Government always assaults rights to privacy and protection. The US government has been waging this war since 1791 on Americans who traded the royal monarchy in London for a homegrown terrorist cabal in DC. Once again, government assaults individuals to protect its prerogative to be the only one despite the long and sordid history of statist evil and incompetence.
So we’ve established the abject silliness and contemporary events prove that the government can never be trusted to do the right thing. They practice the impossible moral calculus that immoral means will yield moral ends. They violate the Ten Commandments everyday or they couldn’t exist. They don’t understand the basic principles we teach our children that hitting and stealing is wrong.
You will note that the government thinks it can strike any citizen on any pretense at any time exclusively outside the province of self-defense. It initiates aggression every day through either theft by taxation or wood shampoos for illegal vegetation by the bloated badged thug scrums that have a license to kill in America.
This is a fact, you stand a much better chance of being struck by lightning and mauled by a shark at the same time than a foreign borne terrorist attack bringing you harm. You stand a much higher probability of the local gendarme storming your house and ruining the life of you, your family and pets. Or ending it. You live in a police state.
I’ve already discussed in past screeds what has to be done for the problem. Let’s tackle some possible solutions to this latest threat from the Federal government.
- Decriminalization of all passive protection.
- Expedient armor can be fabricated from AR500 as long as it is properly lined to obviate spalling injuries. Purchase surplus Kevlar blankets, vests and gear, chainsaw pants, and let your imagination fabricate what you need
- If you can still legally purchase armor and helmets, do it now. I am a meter from my rather expensive plate carrier with soft armor & rifle plates and IIIA helmet on the ready rack as I write this. Spend the money on quality gear, if you have a ten dollar head, buy a ten dollar helmet.
- Personal auto and home passive protection. Start considering what you need to do. You have seen from past exploits that the frightened constabulary has no problem dumping hundreds of rounds into people’s vehicles.
- Home protection against forced entry can be enhanced by cages at entry points, bars on windows and a safe room provisioned in the house. If you are handy, you can purchase surplus manhole covers and bury them halfway in the floor around the periphery of your house at baseboard level. Heads and hips, boys and girls, heads and hips from a modified SBS position. Ask your local firearms instructor for TTP. And always, always carry a firearm on your person at home. And please put combat netting over your children’s cribs in case the cowards coming after illegal vegetation mistake your home for a meth lab.
- There is a huge market potential for armor for children now with the alarming number of kids maimed and killed by cops and government agents. Someone needs to market armor for children.
What to look for in body armor and helmets:
- Weight is critical to comfort and balance and protection.
- Level IIIA soft armor and level IV rifle plates and side SAPI plates.
- Fall monotones like coyote or flat dark earth colors are preferable.
- Undercover armor is an option to consider.
Look, the government has done you a favor, they have provided you with an indicator and warning of how they value your life and the restrictions they wish to impose to make it easier for them to take your life. Make it hard for them. Make them fight for every last meter.
I look forward to reader comments and recommendations.
Don’t comply.
Resist.
I believe Mike Honda (D) – Silicon Valley – is the mouthpiece that introduced the armor ban bill for the gun banning crowd. Ironic that he spent his young years in an internment camp and works to strengthen the very institutions that put him there. He is weapons-grade stupid.
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Pretty much zero chance of this bullshit being passed into law-the same cluelss dolt-Rep Honda keeps bringing this idiocy up-there’s been versions of it for the past few years,and like this year’s-it ain’t goin’ anywhere.
Prognosis: 0% chance of being enacted
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr378
I agree 100% but this is the way of the state by trying to socialize their madness and float trial balloons for later rash actions by the government in response. No one ever accused the government of allowing common sense and progress to get in the way of progress. When was the last time a bayonet on a rifle was used in the commission of a crime? Yet these scary lugs were banned for ten years in America.
I agree on the trial balloons-just like the “lockdown” during the search for the Tsarnaev brothers,then for the one living brother was a test to see if people would put up with the blatantly illegal house to house searches.
The bayonet lug ban was a way to ban certain rifles-because they were manufactured with bayonet lugs-there was also the ban on adjustable stocks and barrel shrouds-neither of which was ever used to commit a crime-just another test to see if people would accept the bullshit.
I hope you are correct, but I have learned to not underestimate the power of a large group of idiots. i.e. congress.
All it will take is one crazy shooter wearing armor to get a ban in place, and by then it will be too late to get any because everybody will be grabbing what they can. The next false flag attack will probably include armor, and calls for bans on it will be all over the news.
Check the label on your armor. If it is soft body armor it most likely is designed to be stored flat, not hanging. Don’t put premature wear on it by storing it incorrectly.
You’re right, most best practices recommend flat storage and I simply keep mine on a stand I built for both vest and helmet. My son has the same stand in his room for his kit. Here’s an interesting study: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/240222.pdf
Now that healthcare costs are nationalized they won’t take the seat belts out of cars. Except for retired people. No seat belts for retirees. Actually, mandatory 200hp motorcycles for granny. And mandatory cigarettes, too.
I read , somewhere, years ago, a proposal to remove all warning labels. The thinking was that the laws of nature; specifically survival of the fittest, would kick in. In the wild, the sick,injured,elderly and young are very vulnerable. In the USA, the terminally stupid,are extremely vulnerable. These maroons think that things are fine and dandy. I firmly believe that the first to go,should be the large number of idiots walking around. What would the criteria be? Who would set the standards of stupidity? Would you have to have moron credentials?” Camacho for President!”
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Like it all comes down to guns.
Who has guns, who doesn’t have guns, who controls guns, but most especially who is controlled by guns.
Yet the crux of the matter is property. Plain and fucking simple. My guns are my property. I don’t give a rats arse if my property shoots bullets or stops bullets, it is my property you son of a bitches. No pun intended, its my property, I don’t see any reason to give up my property, and I aim to keep my property. Like as in come and take it.
There is no argument for this issue, in fact really it isn’t an issue, there is no vacillating or prevaricating on this matter either.
It is really akin to the matter of Jade Helm.
The track record of malfeasance, corruption, agenda, and just plain old waste and stupidity of our government and those running it kind of puts a damper on the idea our government and the outcome of its stated intentions, but in particular those bastards running it, it, they, simply and plainly can’t be trusted. Conspiracy theories, erosion of essential liberties and freedoms, and a burgeoning police state not withstanding.
When you have thousands of solders running around the countryside on American soil training for fighting an insurgency, well you have thousands of solders practicing for fighting an insurgency on American soil. Kind of flies in the face of the whole idea and original intent of Posse Comitatus.
And that applies in fucking spades to my arms. My Property.
When you have assholes in “high places” who have this hilarious idea somehow they are going to take my property, or deny me the acquisition of property, never mind proper and exuberant use of my property as I see fit in the scope of my liberty, life and happiness, well you have nincompoops in brooks brothers suits who want to deny me Liberty.
The malicious degradation and demise of the rule of law, which is a component part of civility and happy liberty, is an incremental demise of republican form of government, more components of liberty really, gives one unmistakable cause to believe the intentions of those in power are unmistakably really ulterior motives. (and secession from their madness becomes a very attractive idea ).
But No matter how it is sliced or spun in this day and age of the militaristic arming to the teeth of every branch of government and the overt arrogance of the managerial class of the federal government, the “optics” of it all really doesn’t look very innocent. Jade Helm that is, and no less the agenda of denying us our guns, our property. Because if there is one thing which represent our Liberty, it is our property, the owning of it, no matter its physical nature, or intellectual, if we get down to it. And the denial, confiscation, “outlawing” of it is liberty denied. It is not the denial of guns that counts most, it is denial of liberty, though without guns, we have no liberty. The Two Are Inseparable And Integral To Each Other.
Get that?
Look at from another angle. In this centralized government of today, the solders and police taking part in Jade Helm would not be operating in such a fashion running Operation Jade Helm, ( or those acting to deny me my property and its rightful uses ), without the express wishes of those who have the political power, influence and funds over such matters. It leaves no doubt not just to the genuine nature of such tyrants, but more importantly, which in fact nothing is more important, than the truth every cotton picking one of us to the last man better get right with the fact it is all coming down to our guns.
As in who is controlled by guns.
And that is the point right there.
For many many people, maybe millions of people, haven’t quite reckoned out it is not us who is controlled by guns, no matter the optics and application of force, and threat of force against us via guns, no, it is us who control everything because simply there are millions of us with tens of millions of guns, and a shitload of ammo and gear out here in flyover land, and those running things are scared to death by this beautiful truth.
Do you get it?
Give it it real good think.
If we and our property, our Liberty, was not an existential threat to those who want to separate us from our guns, our property, our liberty, then they would not be bothered to do so.
Do you see there what happened?
Who controls who?
And don’t start with excuses and whining.
Buck it up Brother.
You are controlled by the gun, or you own a gun and you can’t be controlled if you really want.
It is like the man said,
Give me Liberty or give me death.
Muricka.
CM
Ever wonder why all doors on public buildings open OUT, yet every door on every private home opens IN? How could they kick your door in if it opens OUT?
You may never get a chance to read this as it is so far out of date.
Above, you linked to a decision of the Supremes that the police had no obligation to protect the Citizens. The Supremes also stated, I think in 3 of their decisions, that a Citizen is defined as one who exchanges their loyalty for protection. With that said, there is no such thing as a Citizen
No Bullwinkle, not “… No such thing as a citizen…” but, “citizen” didn’t get much out of the bargain. Citizen owes the elites taxes, subservience, and grovelling but gets no protection in return. Suckers!!