"Christ or a Glock?'

We caught a brief bit of CBS Sunday Morning today as we were getting ready to return home from the 1st Annual East Tennessee Blogger Shoot put on by Dennis Badurina of Dragon Leatherworks. More on the blogger shoot in another post.

One of the stories featured was about the Rev. Rob Schenk, an evangelical minister, who is asserting that you can't be both pro-life and pro-gun. His "conversion" to the anti-gun side came after the Navy Yard shootings near his home in DC.

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When Mo Rocca, the CBS correspondent, asked how it was un-Christian for a man or woman to want to defend his or her family with a firearm in case of a home invader. The response floored me.

"Well, first of all you're making an immediate decision that if someone invades your home, they are going to die," Rev. Schenck replied. "So you are ready to kill another human being in your home. That brings about a big ethical question for the Christian. And we're told in the Bible, we're even to love our enemies."

(Rocca)"Even a potential intruder? Someone who's been coming into your home to hurt you?"

"Absolutely. Is it always God's will that I survive a violent confrontation with another human being? I'm not sure that's always God's will."

I do not pretend to be a Bible scholar. If you asked me to produce a Bible verse to refute Rev. Schenk I would be hard-pressed to do so. That said, I firmly believe that under God's law as well as under natural law I have the right, nay the obligation, to defend both myself and my family. Protecting the innocent against the depredations of violent criminals is a moral duty. If I have to use a weapon such as a firearm to do that, so be it.

I think we are seeing a concerted effort by both the mainstream media and the gun prohibitionists to use people like Rev. Schenk to "shame" us into accepting more and more gun control. I refuse to be shamed for wanting to protect my family, for wanting to enjoy the sport of shooting, and for any other in my mind legitimate use for firearms.

Ted Kopel Writes A Book And Now The Media Notices A Problem

The lead story on CBS Sunday Morning was on the vulnerability of the power grid. The story revolved around a new book by former ABC News journalist Ted Kopel called Lights Out. He asserts that the power grid is very vulnerable to hackers due to its connection to the Internet. Kopel holds that both Russian and Chinese hackers, presumably affiliated with those governments, are already in the grid and could take it down at any time.

Kopel's book also discusses prepping and food storage. He notes that the Mormons as a group lead the nation in preparedness. This portion got a mixed review in the Salt Lake Tribune.

You can see the CBS Sunday Morning story below:

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The prepper community has discussed this for years. Indeed, Prof. William Forstchen's One Second After reached number 11 on the New York Times bestseller list. Forstchen's novel described the impact of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) event on Black Mountain, North Carolina. He has now followed this up with One Year After which continues the story.

Long before Ted Kopel wrote his Lights Out, prepper author David Crawford wrote his own Lights Out regarding the impact of an EMP event on a small Texas neighborhood outside of San Antonio. It, like Forstchen's One Second After, is an excellent book.

Gun blogger Bob Owens has discussed other vulnerabilities of the grid with regard to domestic and/or international terrorism. He noted that power substations were often located near roads and trails where anyone could access them. A few well placed shots could drain the oil used to cool the transformers causing it to burn out.

While I'm glad that attention is finally being paid to the vulnerabilities of the grid, I think it sucks that the only reason the mainstream media is giving it a second thought is because one of their own wrote a book. If I didn't know better, I'd think the CBS Sunday Morning story was merely an effort to push Kopel's book and not an effort to urge both people and government to be better prepared.

Off Topic But A Nice Story

I was sitting in bed this morning, drinking my first cup of coffee, and watching CBS Sunday Morning when a story by Steve Hartman came on. When they first flashed the preview of the story something about that school logo triggered something in my subconscious.

A few words into the story and I knew why that logo triggered something. It was the logo from my alma mater! One does not expect to see a story on TV about their old high school unless it is the scene of a tragedy. This is especially true when it is a small school located in the Piedmont of North Carolina located midway between Greensboro and Winston-Salem.

Hartman's story is about a cancer survivor who is playing the game in memory of a friend who also had cancer but didn't make it. The players on the boy's basketball team were asked to pick someone to dedicate the game to and junior Spencer Wilson picked Josh Reminger who had died nine months earlier.

I'll let Steve Hartman tell the rest of the story.

Subtle Reminder From Sharyl Attkisson

The lead story on this morning's CBS Sunday Morning was a report by Sharyl Attkisson about bribes and corruption within the US Customs and Border Protection. Narco-terrorists and illegal immigrant smugglers have been targeting CBP agents in an effort to have them turn a blind eye to smuggling of both drugs and humans. Since 2004, there have been 358 convictions of Customs and Border Patrol employees and their associates for this. Of course this is an important story and I'm glad Sharyl is on it.

However, that is not what I want to discuss. Instead it is a rather subtle reminder - intentional or unintentional - that was embedded in the story about Project Gunwalker. Just before a graphic came up showing the DHS Office of Inspector General's report on the corruption convictions, the camera focused for approximately three seconds on the sign below.

Sharyl and her producers could have used any Border Patrol Station between Imperial Beach, California and Brownsville, Texas or any Ports-of-Entry from San Ysidro, California to Brownsville, Texas. Rather they chose the one Border Patrol Station that would remind observant viewers of Operation Fast and Furious. I can't believe this is just a coincidence.

As it is, the Brian A. Terry Border Patrol Station is a constant reminder that Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in the line of duty with firearms that were allowed to be smuggled to Mexico by the Department of Justice and its Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. It is also a reminder that while his killers have pled guilty to his murder, the Obama Administration is still sitting on thousands upon thousands of documents that may well point to complicity in the operation by those at the highest levels of the Justice Department. Finally, it is a reminder that BATFE managers such as former Phoenix FD SAC Bill Newell and his ASAC George Gillett still haven't been fired and/or indicted for their role in this affair.

Thank you Sharyl for this reminder lest we forget.