Posting this one here because it's personal.

​Christmas Eve, 1944. The SS Leopoldville was torpedoed a few miles from France. It was carrying the 66th Division to war from England. The cowardly crew deserted the GIs, failing to spread the word that the ship was sinking. There weren't enough lifeboats or life vests. The crew members took their luggage and even birdcages with them. The Royal Navy had to abandon the initial rescue out of U-boat fears. This is not a happy Christmas story.

763 American soldiers died that night in freezing water. Help was long in coming as the US Navy patrol boat crews were drinking & partying, the engines cold. But they did come and saved who they could. The Royal Navy also returned when the U-boat threat abated.

The rescue was horrific. Men splattered on decks after jumping from the stricken troopship. Others were crushed between the hulls. Drowning and hypothermia was a blessing.

My grandfather was being pushed underwater by a panicking soldier without a life vest who couldn't swim. Nearly drowned himself, he was forced to beat the man and hold him under the water until he stopped trying to climb on my grandfather. So he killed a man in self-defense in the water. All on Christmas Eve.

No crewmen faced repercussions for their failures. The captain did go down with his ship. The incident was classified during the war and then forgotten about until long after the war. The 66th Division took more casualties in the sinking than they did from the Germans.

Assault Weapon and Illegal “Ghost Gun” Manufacturing Discovered During Investigation of Camarillo Resident.

​I have a policy of avoiding criticizing California gun laws when some scumbag gets arrests for a gun-related crime, usually on charges that are unique to this once-great state. Felons, drug dealers, and other assorted criminals who have no business being armed have nothing coming to them. It’s not the hill I want to die on. However, I do want to discuss this case.
 
In this case, a dude who was high on something got pulled over and his vehicle searched. A gun was found and he was charged with CCW. The trail of bread crumbs was followed and he was probably getting high with a parolee in a hotel room. More guns and ammo were found. SED, the Special Enforcement Detail (plainclothes deputies), gets a warrant for the guys house and find out he’s been making his own firearms.
 
So scumbag makes guns in his garage. Not a big deal to make your own guns, but this guy is a felon and all indications are that he’s not making these things simply because he is a hobbyist with fervent belief in the Second Amendment. By all appearances (and I don’t have any inside knowledge of the case) he’s selling the guns he makes to bad guys, which makes him a bad guy. Law-abiding gun owners don’t do drugs, make guns, then sell them to parolees.
 
Despite the retardation of California, the world is a better, and safer place with this guy staying in mid-town Ventura’s worst reviewed high-rise temporary living establishment. Trust me, the room service sucks. The only thing on the menu for room service is Neutraloaf.
 
Once the Bruen case law gets established, this guy, if he can afford a decent lawyer, will get the CCW, loaded firearm, “assault weapon,” and magazine charges tossed out. I don’t see how he can get away from the under the influence while armed charge. The manufacturer charge may go as well depending on court rulings but I’m not so sure. He’s definitely done for selling guns illegally and should be nailed to the wall for that.
 
First off, making your own firearms is perfectly moral and still mostly legal. Second, none of the stuff confiscated should be illegal or particularly regulated; it was the suspect’s actions that are evil, not the items. In other states, he still would have been done once it was discovered he was DUI drugs and carrying a gun. The supply guns to felons part also spells doom across the country. The other stuff? It shouldn’t be illegal, but not for his sake. These gun laws didn’t stop this guy and they disproportionately harm normal citizens.
 
Third, “ghost gun” and “assault weapon” are nonsensical scare words that should be banned from law enforcement vernacular. Polymer 80 is/was the only way anyone in California is going to get a Glock type gun in this state because of the stupid handgun roster. Want a Glock 43? Only way to get one is buy an overpriced one from a cop who bought it and didn’t like it or to roll your own 80%. Until the rules tightened, these were really popular in California with legitimate gun owners.
 
80% guns also probably reduced a lot of gun thefts as criminals before would have had to steal guns or obtain them through straw purchases. Serial numbers and registration does fuck all to stop crime. All serial numbers do is make it easier to track straw purchases or thefts after a criminal’s gun is recovered. Oh, and where serial numbers are required you can be arrested for having a gun without one or having obliterated it.
 
“Ghost gun” and “un-serialized” are ways of scaring stupid people. It’s anti-gun propaganda that I’m sure the PIOs picked up from CA DOJ somewhere and it all just trickled down to detectives who aren’t that in to guns. It’s frustrating, but at least Dustin’s press release isn’t any more sensational than it has to be.
 
When was the last time you saw Ventura County deputies arrest a normal, otherwise law-abiding citizen because he did something in California that is legal in like 45 states? I’m sure something is out there but I can’t think of it. The only thing that does come to mind is an arrest for “high capacity” magazines that got 849’d (basically un-arrested) due to Freedom Week. Turns out, no one in briefing bothered to discuss Freedom Week and that all 10+ magazines had been semi-legalized with the stay.
 
I’m not keen on having units named the “Gun Violence Reduction Team” (basically an adjunct of the Gang Unit but focuses on felons with guns so justify the grant money they’re taking to fund it) but at least in this small corner of the People’s Republic, the only people who are getting hammered are the real bad guys.
 
However, we must continue to discuss this kind of stuff open and freely to make sure it’s only drug dealers, felons, and gang members who are getting busted. There has to be a delineation in the mind of police between law abiding citizens defending themselves or engaged in a perfectly normal hobby and real criminals. As long as deputies are using the California-only gun felonies as a means to an end, that’s fine, but all of us in the law enforcement family with Second Amendment community crossover have to be the light on a hill for our badged brethren who might not know better.
 
Now for the Camarillians who might be scared, this was a nothing burger. You were never in any heightened danger because of this guy or his “ghost gun” factory. Good bust? Yes. Second Amendment violation? Not really. Is California retarded? You bet.
 
You gotta remember (and I do too) that most cops are not likely to be gun people anymore than a car salesman is likely to be a gearhead. Trust me, it took me a lot of time to come around to the position that I have. A cop with little experience with the gun community and no exposure to the kind of “shall not be infringed” thinking my readers have isn’t going to look at things the same way.
 
My one ask of incoming sheriff Jim Fryhoff, who is rumored to be a “gun guy,” is to rein in the use of “assault weapon” and “ghost gun.” Quit the hype and hysterical titles. To paraphrase Charles Dickens, if I could work my will, any cop who went about with “ghost gun” and “assault weapon” on his lips would be boiled in his own Hoppes and his cleaning rod buried in his butt.
 
To summarize, this is why I don’t bother commenting on this stuff. A real bad guy is the wrong context to argue over semantics and legalities that most are too dense to understand. Bad guy = no one cares. It’s not worth the energy. Hell, I’m not even sure why I typed this.

No, I didn't run the license plate, discover the girls were underage, and then call campus police to arrest them for minors in possession of alcohol (but that version is funnier).

The two robust young girls in bright sundresses were walking back. The taller one had her arms full of PBR. I laughed out loud, unable to believe that the jokes were true. I knew for sure they were college kids. No one else that age would be so stupid or cliché to drink that shit. Since I am from an older and more distinguished generation, I know that Pabst Blue Ribbon is for alcoholics who have either gone blind or have brain damage from drinking too much rubbing alcohol. My grandfather had a Pabst sign in his garage as a joke. No one who lived in a home with a foundation actually drank that stuff.
            The charitable part of my personality got the better of me and ran outside with a twenty dollar bill in my hand.
            “Here,” I said offering the portrait of Jackson to the girl with a hand free. “Go buy yourself some real beer.”
            Her hand continued to swing with her step. Noses wrinkled upwards and I detected an imminent wave of teenage indignancy radiating towards me.
           “No.” There is no real way to write how that ‘no’ sounded. It was two very long, drawn-out, offended syllables. It was the same ‘no’ that men out of their league heard in bars, that scantily-clad women mistakenly propositioned on corners uttered, and the sound of an emotion that only recently former juveniles could feel. It was a sound of horror, disgust, the utmost offense taken, and truly a jarring feeling for whoever was on the other end of it.
           “No. We like this beer. We don’t want your money,” blue dress said.
I heard 30 cans of inferior beer jangle past me like a plea for help. The beer cans were calling me, begging me to return them to their destiny. Oh, how those cans wanted to be returned to the shelf, to be guzzled in short order by a welfare collecting senior who wouldn’t notice the taste. They wanted to be drunk and recycled for more beer money, or turned into an ingredient in someone’s home meth lab. Slowly being sipped like it was fine wine or a tasty craft beer while drunken minors trashed a rental house was a cruel fate. They were not meant to be drank by kids who enjoyed the sense of irony. 

​Getting rid of the time change is a stupid idea that virtually everyone would complain about in the first year. California’s recent ballot proposition to go to DST year-round would send kids to school in the dark. Twice-yearly kvetching over adjusting the clocks (really just in Spring because people have to wake up early for a week or two) is nothing compared to what we would hear.
 
If we went to DST year round, most people would experience a summer solstice sunrise around 4-5 AM, with the sky getting light around 3-4 AM. This is great if you are an early riser like me but most people would complain that it gets light too early. In winter, you get sunset an hour later, which would be 5-6 PM instead of 4-5 PM. Is that really worth all the light in the morning? And except for people in Seattle who hate having to send the kids to bed when the sun is still up, how many people will flip out because the long summer evenings aren’t quite so long?
 
Now let’s look at what life would be like on Standard Time all the time. Standard Time was what we were on before DST was invented, but time was kept more locally and people’s time was more flexible than it was today. Sunrise wouldn’t be until 8 AM most places, getting light only a short-time before. You would be commuting and your kids would be going to school in the dark. Dark mornings are a lot more depressing and dangerous than dark evenings.
 
The point of this rant is that democracy is a terrible idea because people vote emotionally on superficial issues like “changing the clocks is stupid” and that it annoys them to wake up an hour earlier for two weeks in March without considering the other consequences. 

About my times
 
My "gets light" time varies from summer using nautical twilight to winter using civil twilight. Humans like to use extremes when complaining about some thing, so I used the illumination status to illustrate approximately when I think people would naturally complain.
 
There are three twilight periods: astronomical, when the starts start to disappear; nautical, when the sky is noticeably light; and civil, traditionally the start and end of when you can work outside. Historically humans woke between nautical and civil twilight and began their days.
 
Civil twilight is naturally light enough that artificial lights (headlights) are not needed. Nautical twilight makes it difficult to distinguish objects on the ground and artificial illumination is generally needed.
 
Summer solstice "get light" time is taken from nautical twilight because people will see the sky begin to lighten, which will wake people up, and they'll use the earlier time to complain. The actual sky light enough to be considered dawn occurs roughly between nautical and civil twilight.
 
In winter, I used civil twilight because people would probably bitch that it doesn't get light until about that time, which is when they'd probably feel comfortable going outside, taking the kids to school, etc.

Part 1
 
The movement to abolish the time change is stupid. Going to Daylight Savings Time instead of Standard Time is even dumber. Idiots don't like the week long adjustment period of waking up earlier and obsesses about more light in the evening, even though they will probably be inside watching Netflix or not enjoying it anyway.

What people don't understand is that time zones vary. I visit a friend in St. George, Utah, on the western edge of the Mountain Time Zone, and it seems to stay light very late. 9 PM in the summer sneaks up on you. St. George should probably be on Pacific time or a half hour ahead. Go north, and things change, but we understand that. Seattle has very long days in the summer and it stays light forever in summer. 

Not having a time change works when you are closer to the equator. Arizona is pretty far south, all things considered. Hawaii is much closer to the equator. In fact, on the equator, days are consistently about 12 hours long. It gets light around six and gets dark around six, pretty much the year round. Not so much in the equatorial latitudes.

The latest sunrise of the year, around January 1st, would be at 8:25 AM in San Francisco, to name one extreme. In Ventura, this is 8 AM. Twilight wouldn't even begin here until 7:30 AM. How depressing do you think it will be having to wake up in the dark and drive to work in the dark and start working when the sun is just coming up? One year of that and people will be demanding that we go back to changing the clock. Just watch and see. 

Adjusting schedules will be unrealistic. Besides, it would be the same as the time change without moving the clock. If you start work later, at say 9:00 AM in winter, you'll bitch come spring when you have to wake up early and come in at 8:00. Seasonal hours are out. It would be too complicated and confusing. 

We live in a world of "on time." Accurate clocks are everywhere and people expect businesses and stuff to be open at a given time. Showing up late or varying hours is not going to happen except for a very small number of highly paid salaried people; i.e. not the people who are complaining because they have to turn up at work at 8 AM. 

Senator Rubio said that teenagers should start school later in the day. True, but moving school back an hour is easier than asking millions of businesses to do it. The corporate world will resist moving start times back because it's too dark in the morning. You commute home in the dark, many people commute in while it's still dark, so you will commute in at the same time in the dark. They won't care.

So stop complaining and deal with it. Try working a 12-hour Panama shift dark-to-dark for so long that you can't remember what time of the year it is and then you can complain.

​

While California is well-known as being extremely hostile to gun rights, few have any idea of the way things used to be, including that until 1967, California was an unlicensed open carry state. Fewer still know the backstory of how and while open carry became illegal in all but a few instances. California’s real erosion of gun rights did not begin until the late 1980s, but in 1967, during the height of the civil rights movement, another blow was struck against gun rights.

The widely loved Republican, Ronald Reagan, signed the Mulford Act into law, criminalizing the urban carry of a loaded gun in response to actions by the Black Panther Party allegedly in response to civil rights violations of blacks by police. Without a doubt, the methods used by the Panthers were heavy handed and intimidating, possibly unnecessary. I would be remiss to not point out that without their actions, perhaps open carry in California would have survived longer, even to this day.
​
Before I go further, I must explain that the leaders of the Black Panthers were unequivocally bad men—rapists, murderers, and criminals—and they attracted many of the same, but many “decent” folks too, into their ranks. The events here need to be taken into context of fears of communism and leftist violence that had begun to enter the American consciousness as well.

Locally, the 1960s in California were as turbulent a time for race relations as anywhere else in the country. California was the number one destination for black families to relocate to. Yet even in the Golden State, unemployment, education problems, and housing discrimination dogged blacks. Tensions between the police and black community simmered in the face of police brutality and discrimination to discount. “Back in those days most non-white people were treated badly, it was hard finding decent housing, very few blacks lived downtown and the schools were still mostly segregated. Red lining by the established Banking policy.”[2] This all erupted in 1965, when the traffic stop of a black man on suspicion drunk driving culminated in the arrests of over 3,000 people.

Huey Newton, a black activist, co-founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, with Bobby Seale. Just as the Black Panthers developed a reputation of crime and terrorism, Newton was far from perfect. As a juvenile, he was arrested for possession of a firearm, and in college, was sentenced to jail for an assault with a knife. In 1974, Newton was accused of killing an 18 year old woman in Oakland after she called him by a nickname he despised. After returning three years later from an escape to Cuba to avoid prosecution, Panthers attempted to kill a witness, Crystal Gray, against Newton. In the aftermath, a Panther was killed and to cover up the events, another Panther Nelson Malloy was killed.

Both actively engaged in ‘copwatching’, the practice of observing police officers on patrol and monitoring their behavior for abuse or misconduct. Newton and Seale’s patrols were not unprecedented. Unarmed police observation patrols had already been formed in the aftermath of the Watts Riot as a response to mistreatment and racism by police against blacks. Participants in the police patrols would listen to police radio on scanners and go to the locations to observe.

Note: Much of this is from their own accounts, so the facts may be some opaque. After seeing police brutality first hand, Newton decided to go armed. “Malcolm X and the Panthers described their right to use guns in self-defense in constitutional terms."[3] Elaine Brown, herself a Black Panther leader in the 1970s said:
 
“The position of the Black Panther Party was that black people live in communities occupied by police forces that are armed and dangerous and represent the frontline of forces keeping us oppressed. We did not promote guns, but rather, the right to defend ourselves against a state that was oppressing us—with guns. There were innumerable incidents in which police agents kicked in our doors or shot our brothers and sisters in what we called red-light trials, where the policeman was the judge, the jury and the executioner. We called for an immediate end to this brutality, and advocated for our right to self-defense.”[4]
 
Newton “[...] discovered that California law permitted people to carry loaded guns in public as long as the weapons were not concealed. He studied California gun law inside and out, finding that it was illegal to keep rifles loaded in a moving vehicle and that parolees could carry a rifle but not a handgun. [...] he learned, citizens had the right to observe an officer carrying out his or her duty as long as they stood a reasonable distance away.”[5]

The rules of engagement were simple: “When an officer refused to accord [Newton] these rights, he made it clear that he would accept an arrest peacefully but that he would take the officer to court for false arrest. But if an officer attempted to go outside the law and abuse or brutalize him in any way, Newton was armed, as was his legal right, and he made it clear that he could not hesitate to use his weapon in self-defense.”[6] I'm unaware that he ever did this.

Newton and Seale’s patrols culminated in the events of one night in 1967 during a copwatching patrol. Eventually growing suspicious, the police pulled over Newton and Seale’s car. On approaching the vehicle, the officer said “What in the hell you n---s doing with those goddam guns? Who in the goddam hell you n---s think you are? Get out of the car with those goddamn guns.”[7]

Knowing the stop and commands to be illegal, Newton and Seale decided to fight back. Students from a largely black school were their audience, along with local residents. A scuffle ensued with the officer, who was attempting to grab Seale’s shotgun. Newton fought off the officer.

“Now who in hell do you think you are, you big rednecked bastard, you rotten fascist swine, you bigoted racist. You come into my car, trying to brutalize me and take my property away from me.” Responding officers demanded to “see” the firearm, but Newton refused, asserting their legal rights to bear arms. Eventually, the police declined to press the issue and wrote a fix-it ticket for a loose license plate. Blacks who did not submit to police abuse and were armed was distressing to police; heck, anyone carrying a gun around “just because” was unusual.

One reporter wrote: “Sure, that right [to openly carry] was good back in the days of the Minutemen, or even the wild west, but supposedly we are modern people with no need to carry guns on our belts.”[8] People didn't feel a need to regularly carry a firearm in the late '60s; the attitude was entirely different and the product of disarmament laws a century old.
 
Next, the Panthers went to San Francisco Airport to provide an armed guard for Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcom X. Inevitably, this lead to another confrontation with police when the Panthers brought their firearms into the terminal. 

Officials were concerned about terroristic intimidation by a militant political party. It has to be remembered that at the time, the Black Panthers were the equivalent of Antifa and their protests somewhat like those we saw done by leftists in 2020. Carrying firearms for self-defense was at an all-time low in the country, and open carry in urban areas unusual, so it was no surprise that the behavior what technically legal. 
 
"I submit to you that it is preposterous, that in this urban society we have in California, that fishing through the Fish and Game Code and looking at municipal fire ordinances to try and prevent people from carrying weapons around in an excited and hostile atmosphere. [...] no one wants to touch the legitimate hunter, but we've got to protect society from nuts with guns. [...] The Second Amendment [...] doesn't talk about a rag tail tin-soldier army of cannon collectors who are, most of them, are disturbed people anyway."[9]
 
Incidents like this continued, including outside a school in the wake of unrest and anger over the shooting of a black burglary suspect. Denzil Dowell was shot by police after fleeing from a liquor store robbery, when, as the black community at the time believed, surrendered with his hands raised. Rallies were held with armed Panthers, who naturally drew attention, and even a rooftop sentry performing security over-watch. Police reported that these rallies were rather tense and the arms intended to intimidate officers into not interfering.

Bloom and Martin sum up the spirit of defiance that so unnerved law enforcement and politicians. “While the police scared many in the community, here was a group of young black men, organized and disciplined, openly displaying guns and speaking their minds.”[10] Newton’s calls for the black community to arm themselves bordered on organizing an insurrection to the political classes. Police weren’t used to having armed people of any race observing their traffic stops and calls for service. Chants like "The Revolution has come, it's time to pick up the gun. Off the pigs!”[11] did not engender non-blacks, who might have supported a pro-gun cause or simply justice and fairness, to the Black Panthers.

A month and a half after the incident at the airport, Assemblyman Don Mulford of Piedmont, a Republican, introduced a bill to criminalize urban open carry in California. Mulford was an authoritarian bound to challenge leftist radicals. In 1968, he even went so far as to threaten superior court judges that they would be challenged by well-financed opponents if they were lenient with student protestors.[12]. Until the events of 2020, I would have found all of this horrifying.

Mulford’s act had the effect of outlawing the carry of firearms in California. In the World War I period, California adopted its ‘may issue’ concealed weapon permit system, where discretion to issue a permit to carry a concealed weapon lay with sheriffs and police chiefs. A concealed weapon act of 1917 is where California started down its hodgepodge path to gun registration. It was strengthened in 1923 with a combination of three bills in the legislature. The California Concealed Weapon Act of 1923 was and amended again in 1925. Interestingly, legislative intent research mentions that the bill was part of a national push for uniform handgun sale laws, similar to the state-by-state push for private party sale background checks. One news-paper headline speaks of the “possible unconstitutionality of clause provided for in drafting” in the 1923 act.
 
Just who “undesirable persons” are remains undefined beyond the implication that they are ‘criminals’, but as written earlier, California had its own firearm laws intended to disarm blacks, Asians, and Mexicans. Was the Mulford Act explicitly about disarming blacks because of racism? I would say no; it was about depriving the Black Panthers, a radical group, from armed demonstrations. The members just happened to be black. Some would say this is a small distinction but I would argue that given the circumstances of the political climate, the Mulford Act wasn't intended as a racist measure.

Others would disagree. “As black assertiveness  increased, whites came forward with proposals for tougher gun control. The sponsors did not hide the centrality of race in their concerns. White concerns about gun control for blacks was not new.”[14] Unfortunately, we didn't have an example of white leftist groups demonstrating while armed and also intimidating the police so we'll never have anything to compare it to. In any case, it was the aggressive actions of the Black Panthers while openly carrying that prompted the law; not just because they were black. Again, many would argue a distinction without a difference but I would argue that any latent bias against black people the legislators had a negligible effect.
 
“When Newton found out about the bill, he told Seale, ‘You know what we’re going to do? We’re going to the Capitol.’ Seale was incredulous. ‘The Capitol?’ Newton explained: ‘Mulford’s there, and they’re trying to pass a law against our guns, and we’re going to the Capitol steps.’ Newton’s plan was to take a select group of Panthers ‘loaded down to the gills,’ to send a message to California lawmakers about the group’s opposition to any new gun control.”[15]
           
On May 2, Newton lead a group of 30 Panthers, including 20 armed men, traveled to the state capitol in Sacramento. Instructions were issued not to fire unless fired upon and to always keep weapons pointed in safe direction. One newspaper abbreviated its description of the events to “…an armed band of leather jacketed Negroes stormed into the assembly chamber.” [16] And people think January 6, 2021 at the US Capitol was bad? 

The Panthers arrived at the capitol and quickly became the center of media attention on their journey to the assembly floor. Sergeant at Arms James Rodney was knocked down by the Panthers when he tried to bar their entrance to the Assembly floor. "I still can hear the panic in the shouting of the presiding officer [...]: 'Sergeant, remove those people immediately.' Nobody was going near those people," said one reporter.[17] Assemblymen took cover. This later became national news, snatching headlines in the major papers from coast to coast.

A scuffle ensued with capitol police where one Panther’s gun was snatched by an officer. Tony Beard, a capitol police officer, hustled out both the Panthers and the press who had come in with them. "They broke right through the men guarding the entrance to the chamber. We hustled them out as fast as we could,"[18] said a capitol policeman. An assemblyman wrote: “When I realized that the Black Panthers were armed I was in the rear of the Assembly chamber 10 feet from some of the group. Those gun barrels looked as large as cannons. All the members of the Assembly could have been wiped out in a minute had the fire power been used.” [19]
 
“The action of the state police resembled the Keystone Cops at their worst. The state police, over 140 in total number, are charged with the security of all state buildings and personnel. Only four, however, were available at the time for an emergency and they were not adequate to cope with such an armed group. When they were dispatched from their office on the first floor of the Capitol directly below the Assembly chamber they had to take a circuitous route because the closest elevator is reserved for legislators. [20]
 
Panther Bobby Hutton, chased the officer down to recover his gun and his compatriots followed, clearing the assembly chamber. The Panthers were then quickly swarmed by police and disarmed. “Am I being arrested?” can be heard shouted in the halls. Flanked by a dour state police officer, the Panthers issued a statement condemning the “terror, brutality, murder, and repression of black people.”
 
“[The manifesto] called on Americans, particularly Negroes, ‘to take careful note of the racist California legislature which is now considering legislation aimed at keeping the black people disarmed and powerless. We believe that the black communities of America must rise up as one man to halt the progression of a trend that leads inevitably to their total destruction.’ [21]
 
As the Panthers were ejected from the capitol, they passed a high school group picnicking on the lawn with Governor Ronald Reagan. Reagan was reportedly unnerved by seeing a group of armed men and quickly left for the safety of his office. "Americans don't go around carrying guns with the idea of using them to influence other Americans. This is a ridiculous way to solve problems anyone who would approve of this type of demonstration must be out of his mind,” [22]  he said.

I think Reagan's statements sum up the thoughts at the time. Intimidation with firearms was looked down upon by society at large and the government. Storming the capitol while armed to cause a ruckus supports the argument that Panthers were engaged in armed intimidation. Invading government buildings while armed looks like an insurrection even if it isn't actually one. The whole point of Newton's stunt was "to send a message."

1960s Black Panther open carry was not about ordinary, daily self-defense carry. The intent to stop police brutality against blacks has to be taken with a grain of salt and seen in light of the other actions of the Panthers. It also wasn't like ordinary black citizens were being disproportionately arrested for open carry while white people were given a free pass. 

Police followed the Panthers from the capitol, stopping a car containing Sherman Forte at a gas station. Despite Forte’s handgun being openly carried in a hip holster, he was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon (which admittedly was wrong of them). Officers measured shotguns, trying to determine if they could charge the owner with possessing a sawed-off shotgun, by comparing the Panther’s gun to a police riot gun. Others were arrested for having a loaded long gun in a vehicle, a fairly common hunting regulation. The charges were later changed to conspiracy to invade the assembly chambers, a felony.

The next day, the Sacramento Bee ran a headline: "Capitol is Invaded," and "State Police Halt Armed Negro Band." Attorney Larry Carlton for the Panthers said in an interview that the Panthers "took extreme measure to protest a pending law. But here again, two wrongs not making a right, the other side is taking extreme measures to punish, which was essentially, I think, a civil rights protest."[23] Ironically, "'Today, the Republicans would be defending the Panthers' right to have guns,' says Democrat Willie Brown, who 40 years ago was an assemblyman and later became Assembly speaker and then San Francisco's mayor."[24]

Back at the capitol, within three hours, the assembly criminal procedure committee met “and voted to take Mulford’s legislation under submission.”[25] Mulford doubled down by amending a ban on firearms on state capitol grounds. Mulford said of his bill, “This may become a model for other states to adopt constitutional gun laws to prevent violence but protect the constitutional right to keep arms.”[26]

Governor Reagan signed the bill into law. Reagan went on to say that he saw "no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons," and that he did not "know of any sportsman who leaves his home with a gun to go out into the field to hunt or for target shooting who carries that gun loaded.” Mulford's bill "would work no hardship on the honest citizen.” He described the Act as:
 
“…a bill intended to put a lid on urban violence by outlawing the carrying of a loaded weapon in a city. ‘I don’t think any true sportsman or gun lover could be against this,’ Reagan said. ‘I don’t think there is anything restrictive in it. I’d be the first to be against any restrictive gun law.’” [27]

Ironically, Reagan once used a gun to rescue a woman from a robber[29] and was known to carry a gun at various times, including rumors that he had a gun in his presidential briefcase. In defense of Reagan, the attitude prevalent at the time was that guns were just not needed for the average person in daily society. Our modern concealed carry culture stems from a reaction to the violence of the 1960s-1990s.  Despite dramatic, steady increases in all categories of violent crime during the 1960s in California[28], open carry, not widely practiced, was not banned until the Black Panthers became an issue.

Even the ostensibly stalwart NRA supported the bill, being thanked for its effort by Mulford himself.[30] In hearings, Mulford denied that his motives were racial, adding that white had also been causing problems. "This has nothing whatsoever to do with the charge that it is pointed at one ethnical group."[31] In a television interview with KPIX denied any latent racism again, though he attributed the need for his bill to the state capitol incident and "when bands of armed people with loaded weapons can move about our streets intimidating and frightening citizens."[32] 
 
“This is a reasonable law, once certain exceptions are added that are necessary. It may interest some to know that the often maligned National Rifle Association has been in support of the bill. But there certainly is no justification for carrying a loaded gun on a street, or into a building, whether it be the state capitol or Macy’s. There have to be a few exceptions made, of course. The man going to the bank with the weekend receipts from a huge super market, who carries a gun, wouldn’t have much use for it if it weren’t loaded.”[33]

The Mulford Act was a response to political radicalism, not racism. The Black Panthers were not angels, by any means, and were regarded by people at the time as agitators, terrorists, and criminals; in many ways, they were right. Any group of armed minority citizens would have garnered the same reaction; unfortunately, it was a group led by disreputable men that acted.

Having the benefit of hindsight and in today’s world of Black Lives Matter and a heated debate on police and their relationship to the black community, it’s easy to see the mythologized Panthers as both victims and heroes in 1967. The Black Panther movement was one that was radical and appealed to more aggressive members of society who felt that non-violent activists like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wasn’t doing enough. For one who sees the wheels of political justice moving too slowly, shaking things up as the Panthers does has a certain appeal to radical individuals.

Yet while in the black and white words of history books Newton and Seale may seem to some like heroes 50 years too early, the Panthers does have any ugly side. The intimidation tactics by the Panthers, especially in California which has had relatively (compared for instance to the South) tame race relations was upsetting. The disenfranchised young men drawn the movement had more than their skin color to frighten the sensitive types. Many had criminal records or engaged in criminal behavior that the police were aware of.
 
“I wish that I could say that there were no abuses by law enforcement going the other direction, but it isn't true. This was a frightening time in America, and the Black Panthers were a scary bunch--not just because they were black men with guns, but because many of them were common criminals--rapists, murderers, armed robbers--before they became Marxist revolutionaries.”[34]
 
Men with records of violence like Newton had didn’t breed confidence that this was just an extreme reaction to discrimination. The fear that the Panthers had more than just armed political demonstrations up their sleeves was real in a time when FBI Director Hoover worried about communist infiltrators.

Today, the Panthers may garner more sympathy than in the past because the ugly part of their identity is no longer fresh in the public mind. However, in the years that followed their founding, even members of the press began to repudiate and distance themselves from the tactics, ideology, and acts of the Panthers. New York Times writer Sol Stern admitted that his initial admiration was misplaced.
 
"Within a few years, I understood that I should have described Newton and his cadres as psychopathic criminals, not social reformers. By now, a torrent of articles and books, many written by former sympathizers, has voluminously documented the Panther reign of murder and larceny within their own community. So much so that no one but a left wing crank could still believe in the Panther myth of dedicated young blacks 'serving the people' while heroically defending themselves against unprovoked attacks by the racist police."[35]
 
In light of the Panthers’ and Newtons’ reputation, it is little wonder why they were seen as such an urgent threat. The death of open carry in California is one without any heroes, but villains aplenty. In the end, disarmed Californians were the victim.

There are no known incidents of whites—or any other race—engaging in a similar protest pre-1967 in California. Additionally, there was never any major hubbub over the open carry of firearms in California. Truth be told, it was a rarer practice than in open carry states today, likely limited to a few individuals and sportsmen simply transporting their weapons. Carrying loaded firearms (handguns) in vehicles was more of a self-defense concern, which prompted a 1968 bill to undo that specific prohibition of the Mulford Act[36].

Many Californians surely supported the bill. Posing the problem as ‘armed radicals, invading the state capitol, intimidating police officers, and blocking off streets with armed guerillas, including snipers, to rally supporters’ who wouldn’t support the law? Seeing law and order turned upside down by black, communist radicals surely upset many. Not enough support for gun rights existed that groups like the NRA, mostly a recreational shooter’s organization then, saw the problem as a social order issue, not one of civil rights of the Second Amendment variety.

None seemed to think about the repercussions that banning open carry would have on the California public at large. With concealed carry essentially illegal, the Mulford Act deprived all Californians of the right to effective self-defense with a loaded firearm. Unloaded firearms were not prohibited by the bill as no one expected that in later years activists would begin to carry unloaded handguns. With the typical lack of knowledge about the critical elements of laws, it is a virtual certainty that citizens were totally discouraged from carrying a firearm, even unloaded, for self-defense.

As covered elsewhere, the national resurgence of open carry in the late 2000s led to unloaded open carry being practiced in California. This lead to a number of interactions with police of varying degree and outcome. In response to predominately white and Hispanic open carriers openly carrying unloaded handguns (no magazine in the weapon, often on the other hip), Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill banning the practice in 2011.[39]

In the 21st century, California's open carry panic was over anti-gun hysterics and the panic that gun-rights activists found a "loophole." Unloaded open carry got banned precisely because people were taking advantage of the only way the majority of Californians could legally carry a gun in public. The tactics of the open carry movement are something else, but in modern times we see that the ban centered around the gun and not the race of the carriers.

To summarize, I don't believe that the Mulford Act was a racist measure. Racism may have been implied behind it due to general attitudes at the time, but to smear it as a racist gun control law just because the Black Panthers were black is disingenuous and superficial. We shouldn't be pushing a racist narrative to the law simply because it appeals to a demographic that we want to support Second Amendment activism.
 
[1] Williams, Edward Wycoff. Fear of a Black Gun Owner. The Root. Jan. 23, 2013.
[2][2] http://www.itsabouttimebpp.com/chapter_history/pdf/sacramento/sacramento_chapter_of_the_black_panther.pdf
[3] Winkler, Adam. Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America. 2011.
[4] McDowell, Leila. "Ex-Black Panther Head on Gun Control, Obama." The Root. Feb. 18, 2013.
[5] Bloom, Joshua and Martin, Waldo E. Jr. Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party. University of California Press. 1993. Ch. 1.
[6] Ibid. Ch. 3.
[7] Ibid. Ch. 2.
[8] “Gun Law Needed.” Corsair. Vol. 52, No. 16. Dec. 17, 1980 p. 2
[9] TV interview. Unknown official. KRON. Circa 1960s.
[10] Bloom and Martin, Ch. 2.
[11] https://vtspecialcollections.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/power-to-the-people-the-revolutionary-literature-of-the-black-panthers/
[12] Bloom and Martin, Ch. 13
[13] Report of the California Crime Commission. 1929.
[14] Beito, David T. and Beito, Linda Royster. Black Maverick: T. R. M. Howard’s Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power. University of Illinois Press. 2009.
[15] Durning, Joseph. "The Secret History of Guns". The Atlantic. Sept. 2011.
[16] Capps, Edwin S. (Capitol News Service). “Black Panther Incident Stresses Gun-law Need.” Palos Verdes Peninsula News. May 10, 1967. p. 29
[17] Skelton, George. Los Angeles Times. May 3, 2007.
[18] Salzman, Ed. "Armed Foray in Assembly Stirs Wrath." Oakland Tribune. May 3, 1967.
[19] Desert Sun. Aug. 23, 1968 p. 4
[20] Desert Sun. Aug. 23, 1968 p. 4
[21] “Reagan Orders Check Of Office Security.” Desert Sun. May 3, 1967 p. 1
[22] Salzman, Ed. "Armed Foray in Assembly Stirs Wrath." Oakland Tribune. May 3, 1967.
[23] TV interview. Larry Carlton. KPIX. May 3, 1967.
[24] Skelton, George. Los Angeles Times. May 3, 2007.
[25] “Reagan Orders Check Of Office Security.” Desert Sun. May 3, 1967 p. 1
[26] United Press International. “Governor Signs Gun Measure.” Desert Sun. July 28, 1967. p. 1
[27] United Press International. “Governor Signs Gun Measure.” Desert Sun. July 28, 1967. p. 1
[28] http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/cacrime.htm
[29] “Reagan Was Hero To Iowa Woman, Nursing Student Rescued From Mugger By Reagan”. KCCI. Jun. 7, 2004.  http://www.kcci.com/Reagan-Was-Hero-To-Iowa-Woman/7308028
[30] http://cloudfront-assets.reason.com/assets/db/14030325867418.pdf
[31] Salzman, Ed. "Armed Foray in Assembly Stirs Wrath." Oakland Tribune. May 3, 1967.
[32] TV interview. KPIX. May 3, 1967. SFSU digital collection.
[33] Capps, Edwin S. (Capitol News Service). “Black Panther Incident Stresses Gun-law Need.” Palos Verdes Peninsula News. May 10, 1967. p. 29
[34] http://www.claytoncramer.com/popular/WashingtonOpenCarryBan.html
[35] http://www.city-journal.org/html/ah-those-black-panthers-how-beautiful-10014.html
[36] Desert Sun. March 8, 1968. p. 12
[37] RCW 9.41.270
[38] House Bill 123. http://leg.wa.gov/CodeReviser/documents/sessionlaw/1969pam1.pdf
[39] Assembly Bill 144

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A Thousand Oaks (TO to us locals) pet store is requiring a “gun safety” pledge before it adopts pets. They are now national news and are enduring lots of negative attention from people who feel a need to give them a piece of their mind. Despite what one might think, I can’t be too hard on this shop.
 
This position is a completely irrational emotional one that comes from a place of ignorance of firearms, propagandization by the anti-gun lobby, and emotion. The mainstream social narrative on gun control has been an entirely emotional one. Is it any wonder that something like this occurs?
 
Guns and pets have no relation to one another. A child adoption service. Eh, I could see that. But pets? No way. This action is pure virtue signaling. These fools feel like they are doing something through this action because they have no meaningful recourse against horrible, infamous crimes.
 
I say just ignore these people. They’re bleeding hearts, yes, but the blame for this stupidity should be on the media and the anti-gun people who peddled the drama. Push emotional arguments at people and you will get dumb emotional reactions. 

So the new county seal has been chosen. I don't like it because it represents nothing about the county. None of the history, culture, or industry about the county is represented. Even the geography isn't truly represented. A county's logo should be a representation of itself as a whole, not a piece of art. I guarantee you this seal was picked by the public specifically because it was the most picturesque. It "looked pretty." Democracy simply doesn't work. 

Arch Rock is a very tiny piece of Ventura County that most people don't even know exists, even though you can see it from Ventura if you have decent eyesight (see the header of this page). It's not representative of the county as a whole. The county shaped logo is more representative and evocative of our landscaping. See the rows indicating farming? Also that view has got to be south from the Oxnard Plain towards Point Mugu looking into the rising sun, symbolizing a brand new day or future.​

The new logo? The setting sun. It's not a new beginning, it's an end that is being symbolized. An end symbolized by a decadent new seal. And it's way too close to the Oxnard Police patch. Uncannily so. Credit for that obs goes to someone who shall remain nameless but he knows who he is.

(Since I originally wrote this, someone pointed out that the perspective of arch rock is looking east, symbolizing morning and a new beginning. We are both wrong-the view through the hole is north/south. I would argue that my gut reaction is the correct one; us land-dwellers are looking out to sea, so we associate the islands with the sunset, not the sunrise.)

​Why did we need a new seal? Who knows. I see it as a waste of money and vanity. The supervisors have better things to do than waste time and money on the decadence of a new seal. Now a whole bunch of stuff will have to have new graphics slapped on. A decadent society is one that's in decay; pleasure matters most of all. Having a pretty little seal because all the other counties are doing it is just hedonistic.

From Alex Wellerstein (NukeMap guy) on Twitter. As I figured in my own analysis, the Oxnard/Port Hueneme/Camarillo area is at risk from the Navy bases. Simi and Thousand Oaks are a surprise. Probably from megaton warheads over the San Fernando Valley or at Rocketdyne. The megaton warheads are gone as are Rocketdyne, so those cities are probably going to be okay. Source: High Risk Areas: For Civil Preparedness Nuclear Defense Planning Purposes

Related article: What the 1970s Nuclear Risk Maps Tell Us About Nuke Risks Today

Oxnard is looking into rent control, which isn't a brilliant idea because it distorts market forces and penalizes landlords. 

Dive Medic has some better comments on why rent control is a bad idea.

Some random thoughts. Both are good men and good cops. I worked under Jim Fryhoff for a while. Jim is a cool guy. Bill Ayub was a good cop and is a shooter; we got striker fired Sigs, slide mounted optics, and suppressors on ARs under him. Fryhoff is also very, very pro-2A. He'd be a shall-issue type of guy. I see a lot in Fryhoff that we saw with Geoff Dean. 

Ayub is milquetoast. He's not a leader, he's just in charge. There were a few trivial things he got tight about; I want to say now it was facial hair or something. Maybe neck ties on detectives? Anyhow, not much of a dynamic vibe from the guy. Just another top bureaucrat to run the department. Sorta like Brooks but Ayub still remembers he's a cop.

I think his pick of Monica McGrath for undersheriff was a power move to get a diversity hire. I'm not going into detail on McGrath, but she was going into retirement and I have this feeling part of his decision was to cater to California leftists. Seeing the two of them not kneeling, but bowing their heads to the leftist BLM solidarity protest in 2020 was disgusting. It made a lot of department people upset to see that. 

It's difficult for me to dislike Ayub. I think he was better off as a guy with one or two stars on his collar than four. He made some comments that were offensive to deputies and the public a while back reference closing gun stores in 2020 and I think he handled it poorly. His stance on Ojail is a pretty good one and I respect that. Fryhoff is naturally more charismatic. I'm curious though if he's saying certain things to get elected that he doesn't necessarily believe in. A few things here and there have made me wonder. 

All in all, I have to say Fryhoff for Ventura County Sheriff. If I'm wrong, it's not like the world is gonna end. Everybody who has a shot at sheriff is capable of keeping the county safe. ​