Our friends at Ammoland have been on a story swirling around a “journalist” at NBC News and a hit piece the network ran on “ghost guns” and Pennsylvania-based JSD Supply. Step into the Wayback Machine for a moment and travel with us to last March when Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro — one of the most ardent anti-gun politicians in the nation — pressured gun show operator Eagle Arms to ban JSD from its shows in the state.
JSD’s offense: selling perfectly legal 80% build kits to customers in full accordance with the laws of Pennsylvania and the United States.
Shapiro’s hopes were dashed, however, when Eagle subsequently reversed its decision. JSD later bought Eagle which means the company no longer has to worry about being banned from selling its legal 80% build kits at Eagle’s gun shows in the Keystone State.
The intrepid jernalismists at NBC News (the same operation that rigged exploding trucks for its reports in the past), sent someone named Vaughn Hillyard along with a hidden camera into a gun show to buy a JSD 80% kit. Here’s the very disturbing story NBC aired . . .
An in-depth look at America’s surging ghost gun market.
Ghost guns are firearms built out of easy-to-build kits that can be purchased online or with cash at a gun show — no background check required.@VaughnHillyard shows how easy it is for people to buy and make these weapons. pic.twitter.com/iOan9hkRNv
— Top Story with Tom Llamas (@TopStoryNBC) March 17, 2022
Note that the report documents Hillyard taking the kit to “special agents from the AG’s office” who used the kit to build out a working firearm.
Wait. They did what?
That’s right. The reporter — who isn’t a Pennsylvania resident — brought the kit back into Pennsylvania and gave it to some of Attorney General Shapiro’s employees to complete.
As the Ammoland report makes clear . . .
The news crew transferred two complete “readily convertible” kits out of the parts they purchased separately at the show. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) previously viewed “buy, build, shoot” kits as readily convertible and, therefore, a firearm. The ATF even raided a company over the kits.
If the ATF still keeps to that definition, Hillyard, an out-of-state resident, transferred two “readily convertible” firearms (pistols) kits illegally to the Pennsylvania AG’s employees to complete. There is not an exception in the law for any AG’s “special agents,” which means that the agents must obey all laws.
By all appearances, it looks pretty clear that the AG’s office has taken possession of two firearms illegally!
But potential crimes do not end there. AmmoLand News believes that the guns might have been completed in Philadelphia. Philadelphia Ordinance – Chapter 10-2002 of The Philadelphia Code makes it Illegal to “convert an unfinished frame or receiver into a finished firearm.”
The Philadelphia ordinance is in some legal dispute and currently has a stay of enforcement, but the AG’s office supports the rule. Gun Owners of America is currently suing over the draconian regulation.
It’s a Crime to Build Ghost Guns for Others
It is also illegal to complete a so-called “ghost gun” for someone else. Recently the ATF inquired into a build class held by Rob Pincus to make sure no one was completing the guns for anyone else.  The agent informed Pincus that the person building the firearm could not borrow tools or have someone help them complete the frame until it reached the stage where it would be considered a firearm.
A Second Illegal Firearms Transfer
Pennsylvania Statutes § 6111(b)(2) requires a transfer through an FFL and the transferee’s background to be run through PICS (PA equivalent of NICS). After the guns were completed, if the AG’s office returned the firearms to Hillyard, then the AG’s office would be breaking state law.
3rd Federal Crime
Also, if the AG’s office returned the guns to NBC reporter Vaughn Hillyard, an apparent resident of another state, then the AG’s office would be violating State & Federal law by transferring the firearm to an out-of-state resident, and Vaughn Hillyard and the NBC team would be guilty of multiple Federal Felonies and gun crimes.
Read the full Ammoland post here.Â
If you think anyone will be held to account for the crimes committed — on camera — during the production of this report, think again. Breaking the law in service of furthering the narrative is never considered a problem by anyone in a position of authority. Remember David Gregory and the 30-round magazine he waived around while on the set of Meet the Press in Washington, DC?
Gun control laws only apply to certain people.
I say toss em all in the pokey. These laws need to be enforced to the fullest extent otherwise they’re part of the systemically racist privilege these people enjoy or something.
JSD should hire some lawyers to make sure these charges are pursued to the best extent possible. They wouldn’t want their 80% frames being sold to people who are going to do illegal things with them, now would they?
If for some impossible to comprehend reason we still can’t charge them with Deprivation of Rights under 18-241-242 violations for their intentional criminal efforts to infringe upon the 2nd/A and now the 4th/A with universal background checks just ‘okey-doked’ by congress as an illegal gun control registration law”’
How the fuck is anybody going to do jack shit except blow out their pie-holes on anything to save our liberties under this current Mother of All Marxist Regimes!?
This article means NOTHING. Because NOTHING will be done. All we can hope for is enough us fat assed armchair moutholutionists start getting out the vote for the next midterms so we can take back Congress and start repealing All gun control laws.
Or at least get in a Justice Department that will start enforcing 18-241-242 for these blatent conspiracies and attempts against our right to make and bear arms.
Justice should be seen to be done for all. The higher the profile of the perpetrator, the more severe the sentence.
So… “undercover” Vaughn Hillyard along with a hidden camera went to a legal gun show to buy legal JSD 80% kits to illegally transfer them to “special agents from the AG’s office”.
There wasn’t any need for a hidden camera or subterfuge as nothing illegal was going on by JSD selling the kits or by Vaughn Hillyard buying the kits. There was nothing illegal in Vaughn Hillyard completing the kits himself.
Seecond, it is illegal for Vaughn Hillyard to transfer them to “special agents from the AG’s office” with the intent of having them build firearms from the kits.
A “self-made” (self manufactured) firearm is not illegal if you are not a prohibited person and you do the work your self. One thing that is illegal is having someone else ‘manufacture’ the firearm for you.
Do as I say, Not as I do, a Story for me, but Handcuffs for You.
Caught the sneaky Gun Control perverts with their pants down. They’ll just zip ’em up and it’ll be business as usual.
If the Second Amendment is to survive The Gun Control Act needs to be ripped from the law books. That starts with someone with integrity who can for once unmask Gun Control on the floor of the US Congress and properly define Gun Control by its history of racism and genocide…Otherwise it’s business as usual.
So they wanted to show why something should be illegal by doing it as illegally as they could?
Saying its a felony is agreeing that its a firearm at all. They’ve talked enough about it that you’re evening using their words. Its either a gun, or its not and an 80% is not.
I’m sure the authorities will get to them as soon as they’re done with Dick “high capacity” Gregory.
Remember kids, when supporting the narrative of the regime you can do NO WRONG.
GUESS ME TOO , HAVE DOUBLE STANDARDS , TRY TO STAY LEGAL
I started spedrednaftr I figured out the article was about the law obeying the law.
I wonder if there would be blow-back if there was an undercover story about converting a male in an 80% female?
*Into an 80% female*
Blowback ? Surely you jest… NCAA made it clear they’d be happy to back Kye Allums ( a female swimmer born in a male body) above the protests of hundreds of other women swimmers, thus paving the way for all of the other sports to be bastardized in a like manner. The wierder that anything seems to be to normal people, the more likely that it will be normalized , wierdly. And yes, I’ll quit calling you Shirley.
Just wait until another Kye Allums takes an athletic scholarship away from some with a set of female chromosomes – now it’s all about Title 9 compliance, schools, the NCAA and the Feds have entire departments who’s sole responsibility is Title 9 compliance.
I self-identify as a block of aluminum
So I guess I’m actually a firearm….
Of course gun laws only apply to the unwashed masses. We the elite of news and our minions in law enforcement and the politicians we anoint don’t have to actually follow the law, we have cart blanc to break the laws to show how easy it is to break the laws. After all it is only to further important political progress…
I wonder if NBC will use their new ghost gun to rob a bank to show how easy it is, or hand it off to PBS for Frontline to shoot up an evil gun show, when they are done with it they can give it to BLM for their next peaceful protest. See how recycling and reusing helps save the planet!
Felony for thee but none for me. Nothing will happen. Bet on it…he had “good intentions”.
quote———–If you think anyone will be held to account for the crimes committed — on camera — during the production of this report, think again. Breaking the law in service of furthering the narrative is never considered a problem by anyone in a position of authority.—————quote
This is about the only thing that the article got right.
The report on the exploding truck was slanted as well. The New Media did it to prove a truth and yes the gas tanks were unsafe and did indeed explode and kill people. Yes the video was rigged but they did it to dramatize what was happening to innocent people who bought these trucks with defective gas tanks. The only mistake they made was not admitting the truck was rigged.
The New media in the past has also purchased 30 round magazines in states where it was illegal to own one but they were used as props when they were arguing for the Clinton Assault Rifle bill to be passed. And no, they were not prosecuted as they were using the 30 round mag as a prop not for actual use. One could use the same argument with this ghost gun program as it was made to educate people, not produce a gun to keep or use in a crime. The ATF is well aware of this and the Far Right can scream all they want to but they can go pound salt as far as the News Media or ATF is concerned.
The laws were never meant to be enforced against people in power i.e. the News Media or the ATF or a President who tries to overthrow the government and establish a right wing dictatorship. On the latter the Far Right would agree.
So lying to establishing right wing dictatorship is bad, but lying to establish a dacian-approved left-wing dictatorship is not? From your previous posts, you’re all about arbitrary victimless crimes of possession, which is the bread and butter of authoritarian dictatorships.
Rigging an experiment is how you prove that you have no ethics or trust in the scientific process. They proved that a rigged truck will catch fire and absolutely nothing else. That’s not how science works. That’s not how any of this works…
to Anonymous
quote————– They proved that a rigged truck will catch fire and absolutely nothing else————quote
Sorry but your right wing propaganda is false. The trucks did have defectively designed gas tank.
GM was battling thousands of lawsuits over its side-saddle tanks blowing up in a side collision. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found GM had data proving 19% of all side impacts involving these pickups had high fuel leakage potential. That’s why there were so many explosions.
Based on the NHTSA reporting over 2,000 people were killed in fire crashes in these trucks between 1973, when they were introduced, until 2009. Remember the exploding Ford Pintos? The pickup truck fatalities were 20-times more than in cases involving the Pinto.
NHTSA directed GM to recall over six million trucks to fix the problem, but GM refused. To add to the already huge amount of attention the story was generating NBC wanted to show trucks exploding. In such a dramatic fashion it would prove what the news was reporting, capitalizing on a horrific potential for millions of owners.
https://www.motorbiscuit.com/exploding-chevy-pickups-and-nbc-coverup/
dacian, the Dunderhead, Excuse me, but if the gas tank was rigged, that means the story is FALSE. 2009 is when the last of these trucks was produced. I doubt if there are many left on the road today if any at all.
Sorry, bub, but your mouth wash isn’t cutting it. You are a duplicitous as they come. Two different standards?
Actually not right wing propaganda, it is the actual truth that they rigged the truck to catch fire. They admitted it and settled with GM out of court. I know you love the lefties, but you don’t get your own set of facts.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-02-10-mn-1335-story.html
Here lil’d. Just for you:
Thomas Sowell = Smartest Black American, probably ever.
“Thomas Sowell = Smartest Black American, probably ever.”
Liberals/leftists/dims tell me Sowell isn’t an authentic black man; he doesn’t sport a mustache.
I’ll see your Thomas Sowell and raise you a Walter Williams! Seriously, two of the finest minds and men this country produced.
Someone called them out on twitter for doing this. But the reply tweet was almost immediately removed. It was there when I went to look at the linked tweet in the article, then it vanished when I went back to show someone else.
Ok, its back again
https://twitter.com/JscotMon/status/1507383346858446860?s=20&t=QLYWtWE4eVYPzYWfaOSoeg
Talk about checking someone’s privilege…
I didn’t see a felony committed. I did see a piece of plastic and some metal sold for far more than a brand new or used Glock. Transferring a firearm to a known felon is a crime. A felon in possession of a firearm is also a crime. We have laws that address murder and assault, regardless of the instrument used. Stop inventing new laws down to the microscopic level, otherwise everyone in the country will be a criminal. So next, that bar stock at Home Depot and the plastic cord used in a 3D printer becomes a firearm and everyone owning these is a felon.
Its a felony for a person to have someone else ‘manufacture’ their 80% kit into a firearm.
I wasn’t sure they started the process. I just thought it was a “demonstration”, I wasn’t sure it was the same part, but I guess you are right.
From the article, it appears that a resident of one state transferred possession of an object that is legally classified as a handgun to a resident of another state without using an FFL and a form 4473, which is a federal felony. You may or may not like that such an action is a felony, but that’s beside the point. The propagandists using sophistry and deception to create public support for “safety” laws have brazenly violated the last set of laws that they championed. It is either because said laws are purposefully created to be as confusing and ineffectual as possible in order to be used as a weapon against peaceful people, the reporter is stupid and ideologically based, or they believe that said laws don’t apply to them because they are on the side of good.
Spoiler: it’s all of them.
“It is either because said laws are purposefully created to be as confusing and ineffectual as possible in order to be used as a weapon against peaceful people…”
One of the things that powerfully frustrates government employees (thus, “the government”) is that when laws/regulations are instituted to punish an activity, the public stops the disfavored activity. This is especially true when government established that fees (taxes) are to be imposed on an activity (adding to government treasury), but the public discontinues such activity.
If one goes back to about 1973, and the “gasoline wars”, you will see also the imposition of a mandatory 55mph speed limit on state and federal highways. The expectation had been that the income from fuel taxes would remain the same. Yet, when the public began to drive slower, and drive less, fuel taxes fell significantly. This outcome was not welcomed by the agencies depending on a near-static consumption of gasoline.
More recently, government decided to deny government contractors from bidding on contracts, if contractors had not paid their full amount of federal taxes. (that’ll show ’em!). Then government ran into the courts…many contractors were in litigation or negotiations over the amount of tax due, and could not be penalized until the litigation or negotiations proved the contractors actually owed taxes; government functionaries were not pleased a bit.
Government is an enraged, blind elephant trying to thread a needle.
I love it when these idiots show how easy it is to break the law. Now to have them charged.
Clearly we need to make something moar illegaler.
If it’s so easy to finish an 80% lower and assemble into a working firearm, why did Vaughn Hillyard give the kits to the AG staff rather than doing it himself?
This is why trust in government is at an all time low, Shapiro’s nonsense doesn’t amaze the public, people just nod and accept that AG’s will be corrupt and enforce the law as it suits them.
at least Shapiro hasn’t been indicted…as were some of his predecessors…he’s definitely anti-gun [I can’t even get certain non-firing replicas shipped to me]….but he’s still pretty popular and likely to be the next governor….
All quite interesting, but nothing will be done. The lawyers for NBC, ATF and PA AG will all argue “intent” is an exception. Might even be successful arguing that if a crime cannot be reconstructed without the reconstruction being exempt from the law, criminal investigations will be severely crippled, leading to an increase in crime.
Not so sure about that Sam.
Its difficult to argue there was no intent when its been blasted all over video and admitted to publicly they specifically intended to do all this. The very fact of the physical actions speak to intent, as do their own words.
They intended to buy the kits.
They intended to hand them over to another to have them turned into firearms.
The law doesn’t say anything about “whoopsie…we meant this for our story and not to make an actual gun” – it clearly says “thou shall not, period.” I mean, if that intent precedent was set then anyone would be able to make the same argument and get away with it. “Oh your honor, there was no intent.” is kinda shaky after saying you did have intent and demonstrating it with video.
“Not so sure about that Sam.”
Looks like I was unclear, again.
By “intent” I meant “intent to commit a for the simple purpose of committing a crime; an action designed to be undetected. The claim of LE will be that the goal/intent of the exercise was to demonstrate how law-breaking is conducted by people who choose to commit a crime for their personal, individual gain.
LE cannot be charged with possession of an illegal deadly weapon when they disarm a perp. Nor can prosecutors by charged with possession of an illegal weapon when presenting evidence at trial.
Thinking the same principle will applies to the current situation
ok, i see now… but I still think its a shaky thing because the history of ATF enforcement and court cases over the years have set precedent that it doesn’t matter if there was intent or not and that its only “shall not, period”
Like the current suppressor debacle – if you have a solvent trap according to the ATF its a suppressor, period, no matter if your intent was to just use it as a solvent trap.
Like the Forced Reset Trigger debacle – if you have an FRT that ATF claims is a machine gun and you bought that before the ATF started griping about them but have never used it then its still jail time possible even if your intent was to never use it.
The firearms laws have a long history of precedence saying intent doesn’t matter, only you “shall not, period” matters.
They simply won’t file charges the same way DC never filed charges against David Gregory for waving around an illegal magazine on live TV. [But you can be sure that if he’d managed to get WLP to take the mag, Wayne would have had charges.]
Again, it’s not what is done that matters to these people. It’s who does the action. If it’s “good people” then there is no crime.
As I said the other day: The most atrocious behavior is virtuous if done by the correct people to advance the right agenda.
This is all that matters. Was their agenda anti-gun? Yes. OK, then they can do nothing wrong because what they’re doing advances the right agenda.
This is true from shoplifting-against-racism all the way up to mass-murder-for-a-peaceful-utopia.
“As I said the other day: The most atrocious behavior is virtuous if done by the correct people to advance the right agenda.”
Are you proposing/declaring that the entire system of governance is corrupt beyond redemption?
No, I’m saying that the activist Left doesn’t view things the way everyone else does.
To them power is the only thing that matters. If you assist them in obtaining it you are, at least temporarily, good. Since good people don’t do bad things, nothing you can do in assisting them is “bad”.
As Tim Poole has summed it up, for them “there is no truth but power”.
As for the system of governance, the system’s overarching design is fine. It’s inhabited by corrupt people who mostly exist in their positions because government is way, way, way too big.
I’m not an anarchist. I’m a libertarian, which means I place more value on individual rights than most other things, which by necessity means I favor very limited government because government’s job is to tell people what to do. The less of that we allow it to engage in the freer we are and the better things tend to work.
No surprise when it comes to the Left. Do as I say not as I do! Do I need to say more?
Sounds like pointless nonsense to me.
@.40 cal Booger
“ok, i see now… but I still think its a shaky thing because the history of ATF enforcement and court cases over the years have set precedent that it doesn’t matter if there was intent or not and that its only “shall not, period”.
Understand. But it is government setting the rules, and government deciding when to prosecute violators (prosecutorial discretion). Since the populace has no standing as a whole, a case cannot be brought against the government (writ of mandamus); someone injured by the actions of government must complain. In this case, we are not seeing anyone injured by government action/inaction. And, as always, there is a government “compelling interest” in allowing what might otherwise be criminal activity to proceed in the pursuit of justice, or public safety. (Seem to remember there is a legal theory that committing a lesser crime to prevent commission of a greater crime builds an exception to prosecution of the lesser crime. Lawyers??)
well yeah Sam.
I seem to remember, before the world was overrun by millennials and democrats crying about everything and demanding they be the ones in control, this thing about reporting a crime and expecting something be done about it.
“I seem to remember, … this thing about reporting a crime and expecting something be done about it.”
I’ve heard the same rumors.
The involvement of the PA AG investigators makes this a law enforcement matter, no different from your typical drug buys.
So what I’m hearing is that you folks believe that if a confidential informant makes a buy, and then provides it to law enforcement investigators they are actually engaging in a criminal conspiracy and should be prosecuted?
Excellent, drug dealers across America appreciate your efforts on their behalf.
@Miner49
“So what I’m hearing is that you folks believe that if a confidential informant makes a buy, and then provides it to law enforcement investigators they are actually engaging in a criminal conspiracy and should be prosecuted?”
No one here said that, and you seem to be the only that believes that. Seriously, you need to stop reading in confirmation bias – you do stuff like this all the time.
This is not a “confidential informant” – this is a man who intentionally set out to buy 80% kits, legal items to sell and buy and there was no ‘illegal’ activity to ‘inform’ on or buy from, and then he intended to illegally transfer them. Heck, the hidden camera wasn’t even necessary because nothing illegal was going on with the selling and buying of these kits. They guy should be prosecuted for the about 3 intentional felony violations of federal firearms laws, that’s what people are saying here.
The only thing this guy informed on was himself.
You think gotcha journalism operates under the same legal authority as a law enforcement sting operation?
So, if I want to do an investigation on cocaine, I can freely snort some on camera? Maybe the police will lend me cocaine so that I can compare the effects of what’s on the street today with prior seizures.
Up your game, mouse. Study the murder of politicians.
@strych9
“As Tim Poole has summed it up, for them “there is no truth but power”.”
And so it has ever been with humans.
Wasn’t thinking you were an anarchist; wondering if you saw any realistic means of arresting, long-term, the collapse of the nation as founded. I do not; not even armed rebellion.
“Wasn’t thinking you were an anarchist; wondering if you saw any realistic means of arresting, long-term, the collapse of the nation as founded. I do not; not even armed rebellion.”
Apologies, I wasn’t looking for a reply down here. Sometimes I forget how fucky this new comment system can be.
Um… it depends on how you look at it. It’s a short question with a lot to unpack, honestly as long as this response it’s it’s not even the tip of the tip of the iceberg. This is a huge question of pattern recognition and once you see it, something I’ve tried to get people here to see for years, you’ll start to see this problem is repetitive and extremely pervasive. From the school system to the housing market to international relations.
Short Answer: Is it technically possible? Yes. Is it politically possible? IMO, no. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a problem because, honestly, this was all quite easy to avoid.
Slightly expanded version:
I think the absolute best you can hope for is that you end up with a collapse that wakes people up to reality and you end up with a renaissance. That’s my hope. The rebellion against the school system gives me hope that this can happen because it indicates that people are starting to realize that there are problems they haven’t noticed before and that, generally, causes people to start looking, which is the first step in finding.
IMO, most people are not stupid. They’re dumb. Dumb very specifically in combined root of that word. With the Norse/Gothic meaning “mute” and the Dutch/German meaning “stupid” but also leaning towards the Norse/Gothic meaning too. The combination essentially meaning that people foolishly fail to speak, which by definition means no conversations and if you can discuss anything you certainly won’t talk about those things that really matter.
The result is the ignoring of important things and a failure to address them.
The modern distinction being that the former is an innate thing related to natural capability and the latter is a product of a system that has suppressed innate capacity.
The school system was taken over no later than the 1950’s and has been an increasingly efficient propaganda mill since. Older folks just notice it now because the function is exponential or logarithmic and has gone near vertical, making the problem easy to spot but the same thing was done to them and there’s a method to this madness. Again, Bezmenov told you about this in the early 1980’s.
But I saw it when I was in high school back in the early 2000’s. I was told I was overreacting and a stupid kid. I was called an iconoclast and routinely punished over this. Turns out I was exactly right. That doesn’t make me hyperintelligent it just means I could see something because my vantage point was different.
But something I didn’t grasp at the time was that the response that I elicited in older people was a conditioned response. Further, the mechanism behind this is something I didn’t understand at the time which means it took a long time for me to realize that there’s actually part of this that has a purpose to it. Regardless, the people who reacted to my statements were conditioned by that same system that I was pointing out the problem with and they were also conditioned to defend it at an institutional level because they’d been taught that it was good and what sort of person attacks things that are good? A bad one, obviously.
I see this playing out repeatedly. And again, a lot of that is just my unique vantage point, not some ultra intelligent and deep insight.
At root people were actively taught and programmed to be intellectually lazy. Carlin pointed this out. Well, the Christians are right about this, sloth’s a mortal sin and the wages of sin are death. The worst part of this being that when this pointed out to them they tend to react poorly. An odd thing in some regards, I can’t think of many other cases where victims actively attack the people trying to help them but Stockholm Syndrome is a hell of a drug, apparently.
And so, no, I really don’t think you can fix this before shit gets really real. That sucks. But it is what it is.
That said, do I think that renaissance is what you’ll actually get? No. I think you’ll get a complete mess because the majority of people are entirely brainwashed, intellectually and physically lazy and would rather find someone else to blame. Again, because they were taught this behavior. This is true from Zoomers to Boomers and the Silent Gen is too old to matter much anymore.
It’s interesting to note that, back in 2019 one of Jane’s major competitors in Threat Intelligence (I don’t recall which one, there’s a lot of them) kinda made waves when they predicted that by 2025 the US would lose 1/3rd of its population. But the kerfuffle didn’t really last that long as no one took it seriously.
In 2020 some hay was made of that paper on the web. People alleged that the company knew about CoV-2 in advance, but that’s not the case. People who paid for the paper, which I’ve actually seen, were looking at this from a systems-analysis point of view over time, not a cataclysm coming from left field. The general thrust of the paper was that all these retrograde systems that I blather on about will all collapse at once (a theory I originally discounted until I saw how the response to CoV-2 actually worked out and how much division it generated) and that this will basically “top” the US population because the older people simply cannot reinvent themselves and that there’s so much (IMHO, misplaced) dislike of others in the country along socio-economic lines which happen to be age stratified that when it comes crashing down the older people are dependent on crashing systems and no one’s going to give them a hand up from that crash because generational warfare has poisoned the well.
At this point I give far more weight to such an analysis. I’ve known for a long time that the issues they discussed were real but I couldn’t really foresee a way they’d all come together at once into a perfect storm. So, while I rated these things as risks, and serious ones, I really expected that the initial failures would actually serve as a warning and responses to those and the others would ensue. Rough for a couple decades but survivable. Now, I doubt that analysis.
IMHO, these things come apart not at exactly the same time but in rapid succession, that then probably devolves into further infighting and balkanization along lines of division that have been sown for years by people who’ve profited from it.
Or maybe everyone just realizes that the Silent and Boomer generations died in mass to teach the rest of us a lesson and everyone hugs and sings “Kumbaya”, but I doubt it. That’s just not the lesson that history teaches.
Of course then, I also have some other things I concern myself about in the 10-20 year period looking forward, but those things require more work to hash out and it would, quite honestly, be kinda irresponsible to discuss them at all without more data. They don’t look good to me right now but that can be an optical illusion based on where one sits. Facts and data are required.
If you want to get deeper into this kinda thing, trying to prevent a real crash, or help with a faster reboot afterwards, I’d suggest looking at Daniel Schmachtenberger’s work. He’s done a lot of very interesting work on resilient systems. His interviews with both Lex Fridman and Bret Weinstein are on their respective YT channels (Lex Fridman Podcast and The Darkhorse Podcast) and the two probably total out to about 7.5 hours of brain-melting analysis and problem solving on this.
Thanx, 9.
I my eye-openers happened in my senior year in high school; first becoming aware of actual political trends. I became an anti-communist/leftist/fascist/totalitarian very quickly. Onto college, and the wave was openly presented, without apology. The shift was evident, even in my pre-law courses (decided to become a pilot, rather than a lawyer). All along, I hoped for, expected, an overwhelming backlash from the “greatest generation”. Took another decade to understand that the thrust of the “greatest generation” was to tear down traditional values (there is a conversation here, but for another time).
Eventually, I came to understand that the US, as it was known and traditionally taught, had to be removed from the world stage. A bit later, I understood that the removal would not be the product of losing a kinetic war, but an economic and culture war. Then I understood that the destination of the world had been predicted in antiquity.
Knowing all this, I did not expect “now” to happen in my lifetime, and it is simply amazing the speed at which the fall began and accelerated (the sequencing you described). While individually I am an optimist regarding my personal interactivity in society, on the whole I find no comfort in the coming seasons. I will be blessed if I can get out of here before the bill comes due. (just as I am thankful the Colonel doesn’t have to face the present)
Interesting times, I guess. *shrug*.
All that said above, there is actually a quick solution to the issue once things break loose. Unethical as hell, but quick.
You organize the debate as a method to get people to take sides and then simply exterminate the cult members.
Entirely immoral but effective if you can pull it off. Also not my idea. The other side has already thought of this. Curiously, they’ve even said it in the last 15 months. Is that an internal debate on their side or is that debate settled and people like AOC just say the quiet part out loud?
Really, the only difference between what they’ve said and reality is that they’ve suggested going easier on the children of the deplorables whereas in history people have tended to try to be more ruthless.
The reality is probably best described in the modern parlance by Jus Allah:
“Go to your location with no notification
Quick to pick up the Glocks, fill the clip to the top
Kill the kids, too little too big to adopt
Got a whole lot of lost souls, pick of the crop
Ain’t playing the oldies when you hear the click and the pop”
Also, I’d note that most the people I’ve met who have their stuff nailed down on this topic all have a similar feature in that they considered being a lawyer and then decided that was a bad idea. Curious, that.
Awaiting moderation…
“Awaiting moderation…”
Koo-el.
The upside to all this is that the video will end up on NBC and it’s assorted platforms so outside of that leftist/statist/fascist true-believer echo chamber the only other viewers will be those who accidentally click a link or are trapped in an airport with the TVs locked on NBC.
Hmmm……readily convertible into firearm. If they readily converted into a firearm, they had the ability and means, and therefore “constructive possession, constructive intent” to convert into a fully functioning fully automatic machine gun…..merely drill additional sear hole.
@strych9
“You organize the debate as a method to get people to take sides and then simply exterminate the cult members. ”
Stalin provided a great example of that; eliminating enemies, and financially slitting his own throat.
Stalin’s head of internal security established a fake counter-revolutionary organization as a means to lure rich russians back into russia. The idea fronted was that the counter revolution was growing, and needed money and competent advisors (russians who fled communism).
The ruse was working quite well, eliminating the dupes, and confiscating their wealth. Then, Stalin found out about it, and put an end to the fakery, killing all the members of the fake counter-revolution organization, “lest they get some ideas, and turn on Stalin”. This act was a significant part of the failure of the first “five year plan”, and subsequently led to widespread famine….especially in Ukraine.
Don’t imagine for a moment that communists will not make stupid decisions as a means of retaining power. Like, say….using battlefield nukes. (yes, prevailing winds will blow radiation into russia, but a win is a win.