Posts Tagged ‘Navy Grade 36’

Quinnen Williams and another opportunity to change the gun narrative

Posted: March 7, 2020 by ng36b in Uncategorized
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Gun Case, from eBay

Democrat presidential candidates continue to dominate the news with calls for increasing gun control measures. They are quick to cite fake statistics about gun violence and use every tragedy to maximum extent. While President Trump has remained pro-Second Amendment, he hasn’t pushed much in terms of a counter-narrative recently. The recent arrest of New York Jets player Quinnen Williams provides a great opportunity to strike back.

Quinnen was arrested recently in LaGuardia Airport for gun possession. Most of the headlines would have you believe he walked into the airport with a loaded weapon and attempted to board a flight. That’s not what happened. Quinnen brought an unloaded firearm in his checked luggage into the airport. He had a permit for the weapon, but it was from Alabama, not New York. In typical New York fashion, he was immediately arrested and faces a felony possession charge.

New York gun laws are ridiculous. Even if you aren’t a state resident, the state of New York requires regularly attempts to enforce local laws on you. This is key because LaGuardia is particularly notorious for violating the Federal Owners Protection Act (FOPA), which allows transportation of firearms between states. But as noted at NRA’s website:

Special advisory for New York & New Jersey airports: Despite federal law that protects travelers, authorities at JFK, La Guardia, Newark, and Albany airports have been known to enforce state and local firearm laws against airline travelers who are passing through their jurisdictions. In some cases, even persons traveling in full compliance with federal law have been arrested or threatened with arrest. FOPA’s protections have been substantially narrowed by court decisions in certain parts of the country, particularly in the Northeast. Persons traveling through New York and New Jersey airports may want to consider shipping their firearms to their final destinations rather than bringing them through airports in these jurisdictions.

NRA-ILA website

Personally, I hate flying through New York anyway, and unless I have to, I won’t use their airports. Perhaps a long-term boycott by gun owners would be in order?

Quinnen obviously attempted to follow the law. He wasn’t walking into an airport with a loaded weapon. His story shows that attempting to follow the rules doesn’t matter to New York, where its OK to pick and choose what federal laws you follow. This makes him the perfect person to hold up and challenge the ongoing gun narrative. His case may be one to help challenge, and ultimately change, some of New York’s onerous rules on gun transportation.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Corona-basics

Posted: February 29, 2020 by ng36b in Uncategorized
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When I first learned how to drive a manual transmission car as a teenager, my dad made me go back and forth on the driveway. I’d put my car into first (grinding the hell out of the clutch), move it down the driveway, then stop, shift into reverse, and go back. Back and forth, hour upon hour until I had mastered the basics. Once I had that down, shifts into other gears were easy. I couldn’t be a good driver until I had mastered the basics.

Mastering the basics is why the world is struggling with the corona-virus. Everyone is talking about the corona-virus. Everyone. It’s tanking the stock market, ravaging cruise lines, and putting people into a panic. We now have governments bleaching streets to try and stop the spread.

Yet, all the things that we (as in the populace) need to actually do are pretty simple:

  • Get your flu shot
  • Wash your hands
  • Cough into your elbow
  • Keep your kitchen clean
  • Cook your food properly

(Yes, I realize the flu shot doesn’t cover the corona-virus. But if you’re sick with regular flu and then get the corona-virus, it has a higher chance of killing you.)

Despite all this, I guarantee I’ll see someone walk out of a restroom without washing their hands, sneeze without covering their mouth, and leave a kitchen messy for more than a day. I also bet that China won’t stop open food markets either.

We don’t have a corona virus outbreak problem. We have a culture problem, in that too many people aren’t doing the basic things right. If you can’t do basic hygiene, the best medicine in the world can’t help you.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

No, Bernie isn’t working for the Russians

Posted: February 22, 2020 by ng36b in Uncategorized
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I’m sure Communist Russia has a special place in Bernie Sanders heart. As the Mayor of Burlington, he traveled to Russia to establish a sister city relationship with Yaroslav. That trip has plenty of video footage of Bernie giving gifts to Russians, plenty of which is available on Fox News.

But just because Bernie Sanders visited Russia and might align with some of their ideologies doesn’t mean that he’s colluding with the Russians. Just because the Russians were caught supporting Bernie, or attacking Hillary, doesn’t mean that Bernie Sanders snuck off on a plane to St. Petersburg to plan this with his Russian handlers. It’s doubtful that he has Russian handlers.

It’s a classic case of trying to explain data with what we know (our own candidates) and what we don’t know (Russia’s information campaign) and getting a bad explanation. If you look at it from Russia’s perspective, they don’t care who gets elected. What they want is a destabilized US regime, no matter the party, so that the US will focus on domestic issues and let Russia run amuck in Asia and Europe.

They did this during the last Presidential election by discrediting Hillary Clinton and supporting the Trump campaign. The goal was a damaged regime regardless of who won. If Clinton won, we would have seen Russian information saying she stole the election and calling for mass demonstrations. When Trump won, we saw…information saying he stole the election. All the Russians did was change the name.

We’ll see this again this year. Russia will troll every Democratic candidate. The Holy Russian Grail would be to go into the Democratic convention without a clear front runner. If that happens, we’ll see Russia turn up the trolling to an 11, and no matter who wins, they won’t be “legitimate.” During the general election, it’ll get worse.

Our best defense is engaging our brains and actually reading and understanding news instead of headlines and clickbait. The scary part we’ll be when we see the Russians move past the Presidential election and begin targeting Senators, Representatives and Judges. If they continue to succeed (and the failed impeachment was success for them), I’d expect this to happen next.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Russia’s next move: Svalbard

Posted: February 15, 2020 by ng36b in Uncategorized
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Abandoned Russian mining town on Svalbard
By Bjoertvedt – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

We will continue to watch Russia divide up Ukraine into pieces until it is essentially Russian territory, and as I previously noted, don’t be surprised when Russia moves into Central Asia. But for anyone that thinks Russia will hesitate against a NATO ally, I say, look to Norway. Because it is here that Russia is beginning its information drumbeat to take territory.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Soreide and Justic Minister Monica Maeland wrote an op-ed in VG titled “Svalbard Treaty 100 Years.” The discussion focused on a resource discussion, because while the treaty gave Svalbard to Norway, it allowed treaty signatories rights to fishing, hunting, and mineral resources. At the time, the Soviet Union continued to call the island Spitsbergen and kept repeating the claim they had discovered it first.

Flash forward, and Russia responded to the op-ed on the news site E24. First they claimed that Norway was ignoring their concerns over Spitsbergen. They also point out that Svalbard “is not originally Norwegian territory,” and that only Russia and Norway have commercial interests on the island. Russia operates a defunct coal mine on the island, which loses money every year, simply to maintain this claim.

If this sounds like Ukraine and Georgia, you’re catching on. While we might be a bit far away from a Russia land-grab on Svalbard, we are in the setup phase. I see Russia first making claims that Svalbard is a Russia-Norway issue. They don’t want NATO involved, and since the treaty was made before NATO, they’ll use that as a wedge to keep other countries out. Then we’ll start seeing stories about Norwegian “atrocities” against the approximately 400 Russians that live on the island. As a side bonus, we might see Russia make claims that the tourism is causing negative climate change, so only someone that cares about the environment like Russia should be in charge.

While not on the same level as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Russia has found an opening in Norway, and it will settle in for a long fight to take away territory and chip at the NATO alliance.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

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