Archive → September, 2024
Gun owners prevail against lawless Harrisburg City
Gun owners have finally prevailed against the lawless and dishonest City of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in a case that was first filed in January 2015, and now, over nine years later, has finally reached a conclusion favorable to logic, to the rule of law, and to fealty to the various federal and state constititional clauses enshrining firearms rights as “Shall not be infringed” and “Shall not be questioned.”
The case was originally brought by Kim Stolfer of Firearms Owners Against Crime, against Harrisburg City, as a result of Harrisburg City openly, brazenly, lawlessly disregarding superseding state law when the city passed and implemented a number of anti-gun ordinances.
In Pennsylvania, state law holds that no political subdivision can enact its own gun regulations, for the same reason that no one wants to go to jail for having an abortion that is legal in the township next door, but illegal in your own township, same state, and because no one wants to encounter different driver’s license requirements in East Succotash, PA, than those found in Wild West Philly, PA. Such a fractured arrangement would be untenable, unsustainable, a legal catastrophe. The law must be unified across the state so that the citizens can live there normally.
And so many years ago, Pennsylvania enacted a pre-emption law that says only the state can pass firearms restrictions, not municipalities. Oh, for lawless leftists this kind of common sense law is a challenge, and of course Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Harrisburg had to test the citizenry. And they have lost time and again, every time one of these places places an innocent gun owner in handcuffs. As a result, numerous large sum financial judgments have been generously granted to gun owners discriminated against by these lawless political subdivisions over the years.
Think about this: Democrat-run Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Pittsburgh not only wantonly waste taxpayer’s limited dollars by trying to defend the indefensible here in court, they then have to pay out huge awards to aggrieved victims. None of this has to happen, but the mindset of Democrats everywhere seems to be so hell-bent on lawlessness and abusing political opponents.
And we here in Harrisburg are about to begin that financial award phase of our lawsuit, now that it has been successfully decided just days ago, when Judge Andrew Dowling decided that Harrisburg City’s gun ordinances violated state law.
In addition to Kim Stolfer there is another hero here, Attorney Joshua Prince, who has climbed Mount Everest a hundred times over the past nine years in his hard work to keep the city accountable and the rule of law alive. I do not know what the payment arrangement betwen FOAC and Josh Prince is, but I am sure Josh is not getting much more than a few bucks an hour at the present. A financial award commensurate with appropriately smacking down the city’s lawlessness might and hopefully will reset the ledger in favor of Joshua Prince. Josh also maintains a stable of attorneys helping him.
Other people involved in this lawsuit are Kim Stolfer’s successor at FOAC-ILLEA, a dogged and articulate ex-cop named Jim Stoker, a plaintiff named Howard Bullock, who works in the City of Harrisburg, and yours truly, moi, Josh First, who lives in the City of Harrisburg. Part of my sometimes colorful testimony in court last month is highlighted below.
Josh Prince’s blog post today about this important holding is here. The actual court decision is here.
If you are a gun owner, or a freedom lover, or a good government believer, definitely donate some bucks to FOAC-ILLEA. They have earned your support!
Trump supporters, do these two things
If you are a Trump supporter, you need to do these two things, if you have not already done so:
- Donate some money to the Trump campaign here. It doesn’t matter if it is a one-time donation of ten dollars, every cent helps, every penny is important. Political donations may not be your most comfortable experience, and believe me, I understand your feeling on this. My average political donation is probably $25.00, simply because I work very hard to earn the money I have, and so many elected officials are just so disappointing. even the ones I support. But this year, in 2024, America is on the line. Do you want to save democracy from the leftist censors and totalitarians? Give everything you can afford to Trump’s campaign.
- Mail your absentee ballot request, get your absentee ballot, and vote with it. Mail it in and keep the receipt you get that it was received; you may need this. It is important to vote early this year, and avoid the BS that happened in 2020, where the corrupt vote counters hid behind blacked-out windows and added as many fake ballots as they needed to let Joe Biden claim victory.
Sunday Hunting
Two weeks ago I was hunting and fishing in Alaska. Moose, sheep, goat, and grizzly seasons all began on a Sunday, and my religious, Evangelical friend and I were right there opening morning, rifles in hand, ready. Now, Alaska may be the world’s most prominent destination for hunting and fishing, and hunting and fishing may be significant parts of the state’s economy, but don’t you think it says something that the hunting seasons for the most sought after species all began on Sunday?
No one blinked an eye, no one gnashed their teeth, no one howled at the sky about the supposed sacrilege, the horribleness of it all. People in Alaska either hunt on Sunday, or they choose not to hunt on Sunday, and they do not make a huge whiny federal case about it. They are adults about it.
Like Alaska, nearly every other state in the United States has Sunday hunting. Unlike here in Pennsylvania, where for some inexplicable reason a lot of annoying busybody people in politics believe it is their job to police how we grownups spend our Sundays. These people have made Sunday hunting, and only hunting, not sports or fishing or drinking at bars or whatever else, a very difficult thing to do in Pennsylvania. Unless you are from Schuylkill County, where everyone does it, law be damned, and no is ratting out anyone else about it.
On October 1st, next Tuesday, the PA House Game and Fisheries Committee is holding a hearing on a Sunday hunting bill that will allow the Pennsylvania Game Commission to set game seasons any day of the week, including Sundays, if that makes the most sense to our professional game managers. You are encouraged to contact the PA House Fish & Game Committee members and let them know what you want: You want hunting freedom like almost every other state in the USA, you want to make your own choices about how to spend your precious Sundays, you want to be able to hunt without having to take time off from your week day job.
You can also join or financially support Hunters United for Sunday Hunting, a group I used to have a long founding association with, and which I am still indebted to for their hard work trying to establish freedom here in PA.
Pennsylvania should be able to join the 20th century, at least, on this issue. Pennsylvania is after all the Keystone State and the cradle of American democracy and FREEDOM.
Kamala vs Trump…really?
Kamala Harris has never had a real private sector job, ever. She says she flipped burgers one summer as a teenager, but I do not believe that is true. She comes from a wealthy upper crust family that owned slaves in Jamaica. All of her jobs and roles were within one political party and in public taxpayer-funded jobs. No way does she even hold a candle to President Trump, and yes, she is far worse than he is in every measure.
Do not mistake this criticism as partisan, because Kamala Harris is like the great Republican failure here in Pennsylvania, the former state senator Jake Corman, who I also attacked mercilessly.
Jake Corman is now a “lobbyist” in Harrisburg, PA, after being forced out of his state senate seat BY HIS FELLOW REPUBLICANS and by voters like me who just could not stand his stench in politics any longer. All Jake’s jobs his entire life were in the Republican Party or in taxpayer funded public sector roles. Jake was like Kamala – fake, arrogant, snotty, unaccomplished, undeserving, mean, treated people around him like crap. Like Kamala, Jake Corman was an example of everything wrong in American politics, in both political parties.
I did everything possible to chase Republican Jake Corman out of politics and out of his senate seat. I spent thousands and thousands of my own dollars doing this, dollars that I had to work hard for in my small private sector business, often working in brutal physical conditions while running my sawmill. And believe me, all of the sycophants surrounding Jake and making money off of Jake went after me, as a result. I took a lot of slings and arrows for my efforts to unseat Jake Corman.
I hate career politicians of both parties, though I am more Republican than Democrat, because the Democrat Party is now officially an anti-America political force.
Think about this: I used to be a Democrat. In 1988 I was the central Pennsylvania regional coordinator for the Al Gore for President campaign, back when Al Gore was endorsed by the NRA. Think about that. No, I did not leave the Democrat Party, they left me. The Democrat Party is an evil organization and does not deserve the support of decent people.
So do not try to paint my criticism of Kamala Harris as partisan, no way.
And now I am looking at Kamala Harris, a hugely and justifiably unpopular, unimpressive career politician who is challenging President Donald Trump, and I am thinking whhaaaat?
There is no comparison between these two people. Kamala Harris has zero real world experience, has never really been tested by life or by reality, has taken zero risks and made zero sacrifices; she is totally fake and phony. Trump has earned all of the support he has, by not only working hard his whole life, but by standing up for the America that even partisan Democrats take for granted and enjoy, and which will disappear for good if Kamala Harris is elected.
If you are confused about this, then you are probably addicted to mainstream media bullshit. NPR is totally fake news, complete lies from end to end, and yet all the liberals in my life basically live all day long with NPR on the radio piping in complete bullshit to their ears, without any curiosity about why so many Americans despise NPR’s propaganda.
Are you intellectually curious? You probably tell your friends and family and yourself that you are “open minded” and “intellectual,” but if you are not getting information from diverse sources, you are close-minded, and therefore an uninformed fool.
If you are curious, start out at The Gateway Pundit and Breitbart. Compare and contrast their reporting with that done by NPR, ABC, PBS et al, and then you will make up your own mind with a much better array of information to make a better, more informed decision.
So for anyone with a fair minded attitude about this election, the choice is easy – vote for Trump. He is not a politician, he is not crooked, he has personally taken risks and sacrificed beyond imagination for all us Americans, whether we supported him or not. And he is subject to all kinds of assassination attempts and plots…why? Because he loves the America that you love and that you likely foolishly take for granted, and which our enemies hate and desire to destroy.
America is not too big to fail, and under Kamala Harris, America will fail.
Vote for Trump and thereby vote for the America that you love.
The Democrat Party abuses women, actually hates womanhood and motherhood, and yet some women feel strangely attracted to it
The swift execution of Bryan Malinowski
Six months ago, the swift execution, or official murder under color of very shady interpretation of law, of a very plain vanilla law-abiding guy named Bryan Malinowski, hit some national headlines. Mainstream media initially tried to palm off his assassination at the hands of lawless ATF agents as some sort of maybe-bad-guy-got-his-due, until the facts of his death (in his boxer shorts, in his bedroom, next to his wife) started to smell really bad.
And then the mainstream media stopped talking about Bryan’s execution, because none of their usual narratives could be supported by the facts: Bryan was no crazy conservative, no wild eyed “scary Republican,” no “white supremacist,” no fringe guy prone to writing long bizarre screeds on social media, like me. No, Bryan Malinowski was the epitome of clean living normalcy, all-American stability, and solid suburban home life. He had no criminal history, and he had conducted no criminality when taxpayer-funded federal agents busted in his door without warning, and immediately shot him in his home.
And so Bryan’s incredible story was tossed overboard by the MSM and the Democrat Party as just so much expected collateral damage in the leftist jihad to remake America from the country of un-government to the country of scary dominant national government that will kick your ass every time. Yes, some conservative outlets wrote about Bryan’s murder, and reported about the few curious elected officials who raised questions. But by and large, what was one murdered white guy when the political class had Trump to bitch about.
Here’s the thing: Ever since innocent Bryan’s execution in his home by ATF agents gone wild who mysteriously did not wear their required body cameras, and who illegally put tape over Bryan’s home surveillance camera lenses as they were busting in his door without warning, and who were serving a highly dubious search warrant – not an arrest warrant, the rest of the federal government law enforcement apparatus has only gotten more aggressive towards its political enemies.
Nothing was “learned” by federal government employees about what went wrong with Bryan’s murder, because the ATF employees achieved exactly what they were after.
The aggressive militarization of federal law enforcement, like the FBI, ATF, DHS, who are strictly domestically focused, stands in stark contrast to the often unarmed or scared and alarmed white homeowners whose doors are being unnecessarily and often illegally kicked in by the taxpayer funded employees supposedly in uniform to protect them.
There is a deliberately evil purpose here to Bryan’s execution and all of the other official murder and mayhem done on your tax money, such as the FBI’s blatant attempt to assassinate President Trump in Butler PA, and that is for the federal government to intimidate the general American population.
Oh, the Feds might only kill your one innocent neighbor, and they may have only grazed Trump’s ear with a bullet, but rest assured, the Feds are out there, listening to you, watching you, and can descend upon you or your political candidate of choice at any second, without cause and without warning, if they simply choose to do so.
This is the stuff of Stalin’s Russia NKVD, East Germany’s STASI secret police, the Nazi GESTAPO, and all other federal police forces around the world that turned out to be the treasonous domestic terrorists America’s framers warned us about. It is purely evil behavior and an official mis-use of taxpayer-owned assets, and for some reason about 40% of American voters think this is just fine. They think it is, after all, only about “the other guy.” They forget history, where everyone becomes the other guy when sociopathic maniacs aggregate power and wield it mercilessly. We have one political party in America that is only about aggregating and applying power, and the Americans enabling that party are simply cannon fodder, to be “removed” when they begin to wake up and realize what is happening.
In just a bit over a month from now, America will choose a new president. Kamala Harris is on record saying that when she is president, the federal government will kick in your door and walk through your home to check on you, whether you want them to, or not. The lawlessness that executed Bryan Malinowski in his home is just a vote away from happening nation-wide all the time.
If you want more innocent Bryan Malinowski-type people to be murdered by a lawless, out of control federal government, then vote for Komrade Kamala. She is the Stalin you seek. The rest of us true freedom-loving Americans, we will vote for the one person who can bring order to this evil chaos, Donald Trump.
OH YEAH: Forgot to mention that the ATF’s already bogus search warrant included gathering up all of Malinowski’s ammunition. Now let us ask ourselves what the heck ammunition has to do with potential illegal guns or suspected questionable guns. The answer is…nothing, zero, nada, nicht. Ammunition cannot be illegal, especially in a state like Arkansas. Including ammunition was just a simple bonus add-on by a rogue and lawless agency designed to further punish and harm a private citizen. The ATF has zero legitimate interest in Malinowski’s ammunition, and yet they included it in the warrant, and some loser know-nothing judge signed off on it. Malinowski’s ammunition should have NEVER been included in the ATF search warrant. But the ATF was simply trying to pile on Malinowski, and take away and impound his personal property, as a punishment to him, not because the ATF had any real need for or interest in the ammunition. Just more citizen harassment by an agency whose shelf life ended long ago.
Innocent Bryan Malinowski was murdered in his home by rogue ATF employees, over a question of law, not a breaking of the law
I am recovering from Alaska
To our three loyal readers, my apologies for not posting in two weeks. The reason our blog here has been quiet is I was away in Alaska, almost every day spent in remote locations with no cell or wifi, the nights spent falling asleep immediately, and I just returned a couple days ago.
Alaska tourism can be done several ways – cruise ship, fly to main city like Anchorage or Fairbanks and use tourism services to sightsee and experience, or, my preferred way, go all-in hands-on. And so I spent ten days in remote locations, hunting, fishing, and hiking, marveling at God’s creation. Fortunate am I to have a long time friend who lives there, and who has long shared my outdoor adventure interests here in PA and there in AK. While he was looking for a moose more than anything, he did have a grizzly tag in his pocket, and that is the animal “we” ended up getting.
I say “we” because we were a team, because only a fool hunts alone in grizzly country, especially around the salmon streams when the fish are running, and because it takes two large men to effectively get out and cape out a large bear after one of them gets the critter. Large here was about 600 pounds; it was trying to elude a 1200-pound monster that nearly ran me over, which is terrifying and exhilirating. It is my friend’s bear, not mine. But I was “in on the kill” as used to be said in the old days.
Despite having field dressed and butchered well over a hundred big game animals in my life, I have never before seen connective tissue between muscle and skin like on his grizzly bear. We had three custom fixed blade hunting knives, and they all went dull about 3/4 of the way through the job (my JRJ made of ATS-34 was the last to go dull and the one we both alternatively used as we closed in on finishing the job). Dull due to extremely tough hide, a thick fur filled with dirt and grit and small rocks after we winched it through the woods, and that unbelievable connective tissue that just did not want to be cut. The part of skinning a big game animal that is usually the easiest, pulling the skin off the carcass, was really challenging and tiring with this grizzly. Again, I have neither seen anything like it, nor could I have been challenged to adequately imagine the toughness of that connective tissue. No wonder these huge beasts bite the heck out of each other without showing real wounds!
While I had a black bear tag in my pocket, and wolves were on the menu, I was actually most excited to be present for my friend when he got a moose. Getting a moose out of the woods is a quintessential American wilderness experience, and the one I have not done before. A trip to AK just to eventually help your friend get his moose out of the woods is a worthwhile trip, regardless of what else one might do there. However, when the beautiful male grizzly presented itself, my friend took it. As for the black bear tag I purchased, I actually walked right up to a small black bear deeply enmeshed in a blueberry bush on a steep mountainside drowning in the roar of a nearby glacial stream’s torrential rush. I could have easily killed it, but I would not shoot a bear that small here in Pennsylvania, and so I did not shoot that bear. I think if I am going to remove a black bear from the face of the sacred Alaskan earth, it will have to be a real wall hanger. So I watched this small one duck down, try to hide, and then run like hell up the mountainside, over logs, rocks, and sticks and through devil’s club like nothing was in its way. Even the small bears are impressive.
As for the salmon fishing, I could have as many pinks as the law allows, and my friends’ freezer grew full of them and short of room they preferred to save for the silver coho salmon. And so I dutifully fished daily for the no-show coho, and felt the pang of defeat when the report came in from Juneau that the cohos were there in force, on the day I was leaving. Fishing is almost always “You should have been here yesterday” or “You should have stayed one day longer,” and this rule of thumb applies just as much to Pacific salmon species as it does to striped bass or tuna in the Atlantic.
Thanks for checking in here, friends. I had a hell of a grand trip to Alaska, got my head cleared, my lungs expanded, my blood moving, my heart pumping, my legs working again, and reveled in the this-is-oh-so-right feeling of a pack and rifle over my shoulder.
A little bit of risk is good for us sedentary Western men; it keeps us sharp, feeling alive. Combine risk with hard hunting, and you end up feeling your most alive possible. Back here in PA we have a month to go before pack-and-rifle early muzzleloader season, and then another month after that before bear and then deer seasons give us that brief but intense visit with our inner and most honest, truest paleo inside.
Pictures to come.
A 22″ grizzly skull may not sound that big by itself, but it was attached to a 600 pound body with enormous muscles and claws
Eldred Rock light house
The real center of town, the AK Fish & Game office
a bear head before being boiled
A ton of work and many lengths of rope spliced together to get this thing out of the woods.
We beat the weeds looking for a bull moose, only to find one standing on the highway on a return drive home
Setting up a moose stand is like setting up a deer stand back East, except the moose stand comes with grizzly bears, wolves, and moose
Stalking AK black bear habitat is a lot like being in PA black bear habitat, except AK has blueberries -and- high bush cranberries, salmon berries, tons of mountain ash berries and rosehips, while PA is lucky to have any blueberries or blackberries at all, due to our overabundant deer
A pink “humpy” salmon, probably the most prolific edible Pacific species. Back East we pay five bucks for a can containing about one quarter of this fish’s meat. I was allowed six a day.
A fine looking salmon river that you must share in close quarters with cool grizzly bears on the one side, and annoying, jostling, foolish foreign tourists on the other
Whether you harvest an animal or not, simply being in Alaska with your pack and rifle is sufficient for a complete overhaul of mindset and heart
Endless vistas of countless mountainsides, each loaded with black bears, grizzly bears, sheep, caribou, and moose. A paradise of God’s creation.
Remembering 9-11
Remembering 9-11 is important, because it was both an enormous islamic terror attack against American civilians, and a warning to Americans about our loose immigration policy.
Here we are, 23 years later, and America’s current immigration policy isn’t. “Border Czar” Kamala Harris has purposefully let the flood gates wide open in what is the largest hostile invasion of a nation in human history. The destruction raining down on Americans everywhere from this illegal invasion is evident daily as reports of rapes, murders, violent gangs, thefts, robberies committed against everyday Americans skyrocket.
This is all avoidable. If Kamala Harris wants it to stop, she would stop it and round up the illegal invaders and deport them. Instead, Kamala Harris is trying to make as many illegal voters out of this as she can.
Imagine using illegal invaders as the basis of your “democratic election”…official lawlessness in order to gain full control of America. It is crazy, treasonous, and destructive of everything a democratic nation stands for. And yet, a lot of American citizens seem perfectly fine with it.
Seems too few Americans remember 9-11 and what it was about. Humans forget history at their own risk. If this cultural amnesia becomes official government policy, America will have no borders, and all of the illegal lawlessness will become daily life coast to coast.
Only one person can fix this and save America: Donald Trump.
Trump Harrisburg Town Hall was fabulous
Yesterday afternoon I participated in the President Donald Trump town hall with Sean Hannity here in Harrisburg, at the Farm Show building, and it was a fabulous experience. I am glad I went, and two young-er family members went with me.
Some takeaways:
- Plenty of former Democrats and current Independents were in the crowd. I spoke with quite a few of the people around me, and learned that there are still registered Democrats who are nonetheless supportive of Trump. I think the open border is scaring them. Plenty of Independents, too.
- Trump is a smart and straight-talking person, not just unafraid to be challenged and questioned but welcoming the give-and-take. He is a gregarious person with confidence, and enjoys explaining his policy positions.
- His supporters are normal every-day people. I met a computer programmer, two teachers, a retired police officer. The people in the audience dressed and acted like normal people, friendly to one another, gracious. I saw no bad or crude behavior.
- Not all of Trump’s supporters are hyper-excited fangirls, although we certainly saw and heard them roaring and cheering last night (the young man who accompanied me screamed himself hoarse). But boy, does he have supporters who are SCARED of what has happened to America in the past few years. These are people who were a-political or non-political until recently. They are not regulars at protests or political rallies, they may not have voted until the past few years, but they showed up last night because they see their entire nation slipping away under their feet and through their fingers, and they wanted to show their support for the person they believe can stop the destruction. Quite a few of these people did not even cheer or yell, they hardly clapped, but they were in the audience with great intention. You could see it clearly in their faces.
- Sean Hannity surprised us all. He has a reputation for talking over his guests, which he did not do to Trump. Funny enough, the hopped up crowd did that for Hannity, often loudly chanting or enthusiastically yelling out as Trump was going to say something.
- The Mainstream Media really is the enemy of The People, because the lies and nonsense they put out starting with late last night and spilling into today are just incredible. I am disgusted by the sheer number of blatant lies told by the press about the town hall. The press is supposed to hold the government accountable, but now in America, the press are 100% partisan political activists for the government, for censorship, and against the constitutional rights that We The People hold so dear.
- Discussing the event with an older Democrat friend, I was caught off guard by his sudden vehemence and the strange things he said about Trump. A disconnect between what I had just witnessed from start to finish, and what I guess is the mainstream media’s spoon-feeding of garbage to whoever is in their audience, like my friend. When I challenged him to provide me with evidence for his claims, he assured me he would. So far that has not materialized, and I don’t think it will. The facts do not support Trump being “demented” (Biden clearly is demented while Trump clearly is clear headed and sane), or a “Lying, cheating con man…a grifter.”
- Trump is the complete opposite of a grifter, because he did not take a presidential salary and did not make money during or after being president, but rather lost a lot of money. Contrast that with the Bidens, Obamas, and Clintons, all of whom entered public service poor and exited extremely wealthy. Biden is clearly a criminal recipient of illegal bribes from China, both directly and through his son Hunter.
- As for the lying and cheating part, I have not yet seen it with Trump, though both are epidemic among regular politicians, and I wonder if my Democrat friend applies the same standard to his favorite candidates as he applies to Trump….
- There is huge positive energy around President Trump, and we need to keep that going. The Democrat Party is doing everything possible to allow illegal aliens to vote (which is patently illegal) in this upcoming election, and we need to have such a massive turnout for Trump that the election is too big to rig. (Personal note: I sat directly in line with the cameras focused on Trump, and whenever he was speaking I was visible precisely to the right of his right cheek. Wearing a light blue shirt and a red hat, I was also blurry…so close to finally being on TV, and yet not really being on TV)
That’s me. I have never been so close to world fame, and yet so blurry and far away from it
