Posse Incitatus

All about guns: Shotguns

The American firearms industry has produced many outstanding and iconic weapons, from the Kentucky rifle of the frontier days to the Colt Peacemaker and Winchester repeater.  In fact, I could probably fill out a lengthy blog post just by listing all of the epic and timeless firearms produced by American ingenuity.

However, when it comes right down it, no weapon more epitomizes the American tradition of gun ownership than the humble shotgun.

Of all the firearms types out there, the shotgun is probably the most versatile.  It can be used to take an almost limitless variety of game, from varmints to large predators.  It is excellent for self-defense and trap shooting is a highly enjoyable sport.

Shotguns are also inexpensive to own and shoot.  While the bullet bubble has caused critical shortages in almost every caliber, the shelves were always full of shotgun shells.

But what is a shotgun?  What makes it so darn useful?  Why do Americans uniquely value them?

Shotguns are – as the name implies – a gun that fires shot.  That is to say it discharges many small bullets instead of a single large one.

Because of this, shotguns tend have wide barrels (“large bore”) that is smooth inside (“smooth bore”) without the grooves that makes bullets spin and therefore more accurate (“rifling”).

Thus the big difference between a rifle and a shotgun is that the rifle fires a single bullet that is spun by grooves cut in the interior of the barrel.  The tight fit of the bullet combines with the spinning motion to make the bullet go farther and straighter.

Instead of a single bullet, shotguns fire a bunch of pellets (which come in various sizes and material) that in modern weapons are contained in little plastic tube.  The tube holds the balls together until they leave the barrel when they start to spread out.  Shotguns do not have the range or accuracy of rifles, but they make up for that by spreading their damage in a wider area (this is called the shot pattern).

Because shotguns use less pressure, the barrels tend to be thinner and thus lighter.

Shotguns don’t have calibers per se, instead they are rated by “gauge.”  This can be confusing because the larger the gauge number, the smaller the shotgun’s bore.  Thus a 12-gauge shotgun is actually larger and more powerful than a 20-gauge one.  To make things even more complicated, one of the smaller sizes still uses a conventional caliber (.410).

What makes shotguns useful is their flexibility.  Shotguns generally have a smooth bore, but it is possible to fire a single sold bullet (called a “slug”) through them.  These are slow-moving and don’t have much range, but they hit very hard because the size of the bullet is huge.

Some shotguns even have special barrels designed to shoot slugs (hence the term “slug barrel”).

These types of shotgun are popular with deer hunters who operate in populated areas.  In Michigan, for example, rifles are prohibited south of the (wait for it) “rifle line”, which runs basically east-west from the bottom on Saginaw Bay.  Rifles can be used north of that, but only shotguns and handguns may be used to hunt south of it.

It is possible to have multiple barrels for your shotgun, so that you can use a slug barrel for deer, and normal one for ducks or small game.  There are even things called “chokes” that help reduce the size of the shot pattern to ensure better distance performance.

Shotguns (especially the heavier gauge ones) can have some serious recoil, but they are generally lightweight and extremely easy to use.

They also come in a number of very simple packages.

Perhaps the most basic model is a single-shot, break action.  Basically you push a lever and the rear of the shotgun (“the breech”) opens on a hinge, allowing you to insert a single cartridge.

You then snap the shotgun closed and can now fire.  Once you have fired, you break it open (which usually causes the spent shell casing to eject) and insert another one.

While this may seem slow and inefficient, compared to muzzle-loading firearms of ages past, it is remarkably quick and easy.

Even better are the double-barrel shotguns, which let you fire two barrels before you have to reload.  There are two kinds of double-barrels:  side-by-side and over-under.  The over-under is by far the more costly.  I must admit I'm not sure why, other than it may be slightly more accurate in terms of sight picture - and people are willing to pay more for them.

About a century ago the pump-action shotgun was developed and it is probably the most common.  You can insert the individual shells into a tubular magazine below the barrel and by racking grip back and forth you can eject the spent shell and insert a new one.

This distinctive noise and determined motion has been a mainstay of Hollywood movies for decades.  Of course, being Hollywood they usually get it wrong.

For example, in a moment of tension one character will point a shotgun at another and – to emphasize the drama, he will rack it and keep pointing it.  Now by doing this he was just admitting that the shotgun was unloaded so the other character could actually have just pushed it aside without fear.

If it was loaded, the other round should have ejected, which would be stupid.

One sees similar variations on this (usually in horror flicks) when a character racks the shotgun before approaching where they thing the baddy is hiding.  Again, this means that while the character was grimly approaching, his weapon was unloaded and therefore useless.

Are there semi-auto shotguns?  Of course!  Firearms genius John Browning made one a century ago that is still popular today.

Shotguns are used elsewhere and are prized sporting and game weapons in Europe.  In fact (gun control propaganda to the contrary) there are quite a few shotguns in private hands in Europe, especially France and England.

The strange thing about Europeans is that they consider the use of shotguns against people to be utterly barbaric.  Shotguns are for game, period.

During World War I, trench fighting was almost tailor-made for shotguns.  It is hard to think of a better weapon to clear a trench than a large-bore shotgun. 

When the United States entered the war, that was one of the first weapons we hit upon and shotguns were quickly modified for military use.

The German reaction to this was utter outrage.  They said it was a war crime to use shotguns against people.

You read the right, the people who brought you poison gas and unrestricted submarine warfare had a serious problem with (of all things) shotguns.

The Germans threatened to kill anyone they found carrying shotguns or shotgun ammunition, even if they surrendered.  Of course by that point in the war the Allies had more than a few German prisoners and it was pointed out that if they wanted to start killing POWs, two could play that game, so the Germans backed down.

With more states allowing concealed carry, I would have to say that a pistol would probably be my first purchase if I didn't own any firearms, but the second would have to be a shotgun.

The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers

One of the paradoxes of the culture war is that the overwhelming strength of the left also carries within it the seeds of its own downfall.

The fact that the left is now ascendant may dismay classical liberals and friends of freedom everywhere, but in the long view, it cannot last.

The left needs enemies.  As traditional society recedes into the shadows, the left must begin attacking itself.  It is the nature of the creature.  Like Morgoth and Sauron, the left needs the enemies to survive - without them it begins to self-destruct.

The last century has conclusively shown that one cannot create paradise on earth.  There can be no New Man, only an increasingly warped and twisted version of one God made.

Looking around us, can we not see such creatures already?

Many conservative commentators (myself included) have lamented that having subverted the Supreme Court, neutered Congress and captured the Executive, the left is now poised to begin hunting down the rest of civil society.  Persecution of those who do not full-throatedly endorse the left's talking points of the moment is already underway.

And yet, the left will ultimately fail.  They can create prisons, kill in the millions and shatter nations, but they cannot conquer the human spirit.  Grim thinking perhaps, but true nevertheless.

I don't think it will come to camps and pograms (other than virtual ones), largely because the American left is too lazy to get up from its keyboard.  Actual pograms require goons, and that 's a job that hipsters aren't really up to doing.  The only people in this country willing to actually mix it up tend to be on the right.  If the left were to try to use physical violence,  it will end poorly for them.

Indeed, the collapse of the left is already underway.  Their greatest stronghold, the citadel of their power, is academia.  They have destroyed the liberal arts and are already corrupting the "hard sciences" through their cult of Global Warming Climate Change.

The cost of college is already far more than it is worth, and the rape hysteria is only going to speed up the bursting of the Higher Education Bubble.

Consider this item from Michigan's crazy capital, Ann Arbor.  The Skunk Bears conducted a campus safety study that was designed to create false positives and conflate boorish behavior with attempted rape and forcible sexual assault.

Sexual assault is a serious crime - a felony that should be investigated by police, yet academics want this handled by bureaucrats whose only weapon is expulsion.  How this is supposed to deter non-students who have long treated the campus as a gun-free victim zone is nowhere addressed.

Even with creative accounting, U-M sex commissars failed to duplicate the bogus "One in five women will be sexually assaulted" and will no doubt use this to enforce their neo-Victorian sexual mores, but the ultimate result will be to destroy the "brand" of college altogether.

Still, all is not lost.  They did get the data that wanted:

Dramatically fewer students reported the misconduct to a university official — only 3.6 percent. And of those who disclosed to a UM official, just 60 percent said they received a response that made them feel supported — an issue that UM officials said they need to address. [Emphasis added.]

The poor things.  One wonders what the target percentage should be - and how many people's lives have to be ruined to ensure that everyone who files a complaint feels happy with the outcome?  I guess transitioning to full-on "all accusations must be true" is the only way to truly make things "safe."

U-M is courting with its own destruction here.  After all, who wants to send their daughters to a place of (self-proclaimed) rampant sexual violence?  Who wants to send their sons to a school where a single allegation can destroy their future?  Who would risk either while paying $40,000+ in tuition?

Male enrollment is already falling and as universities morph into Feminist Finishing Schools, demand for their overpriced credentials will disappear.

At the same time, state governments facing increasing health-care costs and pension pressure will see little reason to bankroll this nonsense and cut funding, in turn leading to further tuition spikes.

That is why I titled this piece with what might call the Princess Leia Paradox - the more the left gains total control, the more it will fragment and the greater the resistance to it will be come.

As they extend their totalitarian grip across the public square, they will only undermine themselves further.

Prediction: Today's ruling about gay 'marriage' will not apply to muslims

We've all seen the news.  Mainstream media outlets have treated it as a combination of the Emancipation Proclamation and Civil Rights Act all rolled into one.

I guess it says something that THE civil rights cause of my generation is something that even most homosexuals will not bother with.

But of course it was never about "equality" but rather about putting traditional religious folks in their place.  And so they shall be.

I'm sure that the lawsuits against those branches of Christianity that haven't gotten with the program and embraced the gay agenda will be filed starting on Monday.  The Catholic Church will of course be a high-priority target, but smaller conservative denominations of limited means will also soon feel the lash.

One group that won't get sued will be the muslims.  No one is going to force them to perform same-sex marriages.  That would be mean.

I'm looking forward to the national government sitting in judgement on Christian doctrine and applying the power of the state to determine what counts a "true" religious belief.   The ACLU has already declared that they are totally on board with using state power to force religious people to participate in ceremonies they consider blasphemous.

You know, because fairness and all that.

Exit question:  When revoking the IRS exemption fails to cause traditional Christian churches to renounce their doctrine and perform the ceremonies, what additional measures will the government use to compel obedience?

 

The Leftward Slide Continues

Leftist philosophies and policies seem to be making inroads at a greater clip, as my esteemed co-blogger pointed out with his recent commentary on the Charleston, S.C., church murders.

Countless flailing efforts at gun control; state and local government officials opening the gay marriage floodgates; efforts to ban symbols and monuments (confederate flag, Ten Commandments, et al); and now, alarmingly, a second U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding the Soviet-style, command-and-control albatross of Obamacare.

Today, the Supremes voted 6-3 in King V. Burwell that the language of Obamacare permits federal subsidies nationwide -- not just to enrollees who signed up on websites created by the states in which they reside. Many enrollees used the federal website -- Healthcare.gov -- rather than state exchanges, and the Obamacare language specifically references limiting subsidies to "an exchange established by the state." 

The ruling comes almost exactly three years to the date of Chief Justice John Roberts' flimsy ruling that the penalty for violating the Obamacare mandate is a "tax," which makes it constitutional. (Never mind that all taxes must originate in the U.S. House, not the Senate, from whence the Unaffordable Albatross Act came.)

The insanity of progressivism continues to erode at our nation's foundations. This is, as I've noted, partly due to the poor job our schools and universities do of teaching accurate history -- i.e., a narrative that doesn't gloss over the failures of socialism and progressive policies. But it's also due to a general apathy, lassitude and ignorance of tens of millions of people.

Obamacare now can proceed full speed ahead, and even a Republican president beginning in 2017 (unlikely, the way things look) and Republican Congress will be hard-pressed to clean up the mess. Once the subsidies and bureaucracy get their tentacles into the American economy and way of life, it's all over.

We will continue to see the wreckage: People losing their policies and facing much higher premiums; millions being dumped onto the Medicaid rolls, where waiting times for doctors and treatments will be lengthened due to a chronic provider shortage; doctors opting to take cash only and free themselves of the nightmare of insurance-related paperwork; more doctors retiring; fewer doctors agreeing to accept Medicaid and Medicare; and companies moving even more in the direction of providing part-time, temporary jobs to escape the burden of Obamacare.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that Obamacare is destroying what was the world's greatest health care system. All the naive and good intentions in the world won't change that. Nor will it take high intellect or keen perceptive abilities to witness the awful consequences. All it will take is simple awareness, as well as the desire to be informed and engaged. Sadly, that's asking too much of so many Americans in 2015.

If we could all get our noses out of our smart phones, put down the reefer, lay off the booze, tone down the Paxil & Prozac, and stop believing the corrupt media, we might have a prayer.

Confederate flag kills 9, man with gun possibly involved as well

We at the Posse have long noted that the desire for gun control in response to crime is a fatal attribution error; it places blame on an inanimate object rather than the actual criminal.

Now apparently we're blaming the Confederate Battle Flag.

At this point, the Outrage Porn is becoming a parody of itself.  We have the ritualized denunciations, the destruction of symbols and now retailers falling over themselves to announce they won't sell a product that just yesterday they were proud to feature on their shelves.

Amazon, Ebay and Wal-Mart are the biggest @#$%! hypocrites in the world and I'm inclined to join Ace in suggesting that corporate taxes are just fine, thank you.  Since these titans of industry want to bow and scrape before the left and grovel before their state master, let's just nationalize them and be done with it.

Like it or not, the Rebel flag is part of our history and to suppress it is just another example of how the left has an insatiable need to destroy the past.  They are always seeking to find Year Zero and get a fresh start.

Lest anyone misunderstand my motives, I will note that while my family tree was somewhat divided on the great issue of the back in 1860, the majority of my ancestors fought for the Union and were staunch Abolitionists.  Indeed, one of my kin actually died in a southern prison after trying to teach slaves to read.

I regard the Stars and Bars as a symbol of secession and while I can admire much of the bravery and skill shown by Confederate soldiers, I also cannot excuse the outright treason of so many officers. 

Curiously, it is an often unremarked-upon fact that while the U.S. officer corps was shot through with Confederates, the enlisted ranks remained loyal to the Union, even among detachments based in the South who underwent significant hardship to reach friendly territory.

I am about as Pro-Union as one can get, but this whole episode is nonsensical - particularly given the rapidly deteriorating world situation.

I guess when Iranian nuclear missiles are arcing overhead, we will at least be smug in our assertion that fewer Confederate flags will be incinerated when the warheads detonate.

Twilight of Fatherhood

At no other point in history has so much cultural energy been expended to destroy and denigrate fatherhood.

Fathers are mocked in the popular culture, targeted by the legal system and increasingly rare in the sense of living with and parenting their offspring.

And yet, somehow, like a hardy plant coming up through the asphalt, it endures.

I believe it is because fatherhood is intrinsic to humanity.  For more than a century the left has tried to build the New Man (or is that New Person?) and yet despite all their efforts, all they can do is make weak parodies of what they hate.

J.R.R. Tolkien spotted this decades ago.  The evil spirit Melkor (a stand-in for Satan) coveted Creation but being subordinate to God, could not make anything of his own substance.  So instead he perverted creation, mocking it and inadvertently revealing his own twisted soul in the horrors that resulted.  In so doing he ceased being Melkor ("He Who Arises in Might") and became Morgoth ("Dark Foe of the World").

Angelic spirits who sided with him became demons and elves and men he captured were twisted into hideous orcs.  The "ideal society" of Morgoth was in fact a vast slave camp and military machine, founded in cruelty that celebrated ugliness.

Though Tolkien despised allegory, he readily agreed his work was applicable.  Modern society is increasingly Morgothian.  Bruce Jenner can't become a woman, but he can assume the parody appearance of one.  The power of the Dark Lord seems insurmountable and its victory is all but assured.

Yet just as in Middle Earth, there is another Power, beyond the reach of Morgoth and his minions.  The Left has tried to bury it, lie about it and has killed millions in an effort to eradicate it, yet it cannot be destroyed.

Fatherhood will weather this storm because it is human nature. 

Many blogs (particularly Ace of Spades) have played up the sense that modern feminism is nothing more than adolescent rebellion against a father figure.

It is true and it is also why the modern totalitarian version of feminism will also fail because it is entirely based on opposition to something else.  It must define itself as anti-fatherhood, and anti-male.

In so doing, it carries the seeds of its own destruction.  A movement that exists purely to fight and enemy is ultimately dependent on that enemy.  George Orwell demonstrated this in "1984" but his real-life model was Joseph Stalin's Soviet empire, which created enemies when there were none to justify its repression.

Stalinism only worked in a climate of fear of something worse, so the Soviets had to constantly hunt down imagined enemies including the Old Guard, Kulaks, and Nationalities until the Nazis gave them an actual existential foe.

Fatherhood has no such need.  Fatherhood just is.  It stands in opposition to nothing but instead work in harmony with motherhood.

This Fathers Day, take a moment to give old Dad a call or remember him in your prayers.  Right now things look pretty grim, but I'm reliably informed that we've been in worse places.

I'd rather weather a Twitter storm than be stuck in Siberia digging for gold with a stick.

 

Massacre

My thoughts and prayers go out to the nine victims of the Charleston, S.C., church mass murders and their grieving families. A sick and deranged young man, Dylann Storm Roof, 21, has been arrested and charged with the murders.

In light of the tension between the races of recent months, underscored by police/citizen interactions that have resulted in deaths, and the riots in Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore, this latest horror is like picking at a sensitive scab. Regrettably, it portends more trouble.

Sure as clockwork, President Barack Obama, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and other Democrats are exploiting this tragic event by inferring that more gun control is needed. The left never ceases to amaze me with its crassness.

Once again, let's review a few facts. There are hundreds of millions of guns in America. There are tens of millions of responsible gun owners. But a tiny, minuscule percentage of people uses guns for mass murders.

So we should do what? Deprive the vast majority of law abiding gun owners their constitutional rights to own firearms? Do the leftists ever consider how many lives are saved by armed citizens? The other day, my esteemed co-blogger linked to a Detroit News story about a woman who, unbeknownst to thugs who tried to break into her house in the middle of the night, was packing heat. She delivered a rather rude welcome, and the miscreants scattered like cockroaches.

LISTEN, LEFTISTS: Untold lives have been saved, and rapes/assaults prevented, because would-be victims were armed. If gun-wielding thugs try breaking into your home in the middle of the night, or assaulting you on the street, would you like to see the police show up armed only with billy clubs? I think not.

Additionaly, left-leaning media have reverted to knee-jerk form, blaming the old bogeymen, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and conservatives in general for instilling hatred in the heart of the murderer. Yawn. Alas, original thoughts among leftists are as rare as palm trees in the Arctic Circle.

But let's get back to the heart of the matter. There are some sick people in this world. It is highly likely that people who knew Dylann Roof could see he was on the wrong track and needed professional help. We ought to be our brother's keeper, even if we often choose not to be. Helping those who are troubled can prevent horrors down the line. But inconveniencing and endangering millions to prove a political point is sheer idiocy. Let's not compound one problem with another.

Gun Review: Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mark III (.303 British)

The Short Magazine Lee-Enfield has a venerable history.  A century ago it was the mainstay of the British Empire during World War I.  The design was so strong that it remained in service with slight modification into World War II as well.

Indeed, the SMLE was one of three rifles that transcended the Great War and carried on into the Second World War (the others being the German Mauser 98K and the Russian/Soviet Moisin-Nagant).

I could go on, but in fact the SMLE’s storied history is too great for a blog – many books have been written about it.  This is a gun review, not a history lesson.

The most striking thing about the SMLE, particularly to a modern shooters, is its weight.  This is a heavy implement of wood and metal.  It is not particularly ergonomic.  One adjusts to the rifle rather than the other way around.

 

The weapons of this era were designed for both close combat and long-range fire.  The SMLE was issued with foot-long sword bayonet that turned it into a powerful melee weapon.  The brass plate on the butt of the stock not only serves to protect the wood, it also adds additional blunt force trauma when the rifle is used in hand-to-hand combat.

The Enfield is also a throwback in that it fires what used to be called a “full-powered” cartridge.  The sights on my particular specimen (a Mark III*) go out to 2000 yards.  This is not an exercise in wishful thinking.  The .303 British caliber round was easily capable of killing at that distance.  Indeed, the difference between a “sniper” version and the standard issue of this rifle was better optics.  That was all one needed.

The SMLE has a bolt action and a ten-round detachable box magazine.  In practice, the magazine is rarely removed – it is far easier to ‘charge’ it with a clip or insert individual rounds to top it off.  Clearly the SMLE has a slower rate of fire than a semi-automatic, but this is a weapon of long-range precision.

It was designed to fight in the mountains of the Hindu Kush or the plains of South Africa, but no one in the trenches needed to shoot 2,000 yards.  Hence the rise of the sub-machinegun, with much less range but a far higher rate of fire.  Later, in the waning days of World War II, the forerunner of the modern assault rifle would emerge. 

The recoil on the SMLE is considerable.  I have watched more than one military veteran get too close to the sights and end up clubbing themselves in the nose.  This weapon requires a great deal of respect and is in no way comparable to the M-16/AR-15 family of weapons.

Because of this power, it was considered too difficult a rifle to train recruits on and a (now highly sought after) .22 LR version was developed.  After mastering the fundamentals of shooting on the .22, recruits could then move up to the considerable challenge of the .303 cartridge.

Fired from a bench against a short range target, one may as well take a pencil and punch out the bullseye.  It is that accurate.  The difficulty comes from using the open sights and not anticipating the recoil (and with a brass butt-plate pressed into your shoulder, it is easy to become gun-shy).  The trigger action on my particular model was excellent.  Indeed, I find it superior to many of the modern weapons.

The .303. British cartridge is not too difficult to find.  I have found them at many retailers and the rifle is well suited to taking large game.  In fact, after the war, many of them were modified to be hunting weapons ("sporterized") with new stocks and scopes.

In terms of terminology, the irony runs deep with rifles of this vintage because unlike their modern replacements, they truly were "high-power" and capable of punching through just about any body armor then on offer.  In fact, I doubt even the modern ceramic armor could stand up to a SMLE at close range.

One could purchase one of these for hunting, for the historical value or simply for the pleasure of owning a working vintage rifle.  I regard mine as a non-negotiable cornerstone of my collection.  I bought it for a song in the late 1990s and it is one of the best deals I've ever made.

The SMLE is not for the novice shooter or someone who is unwilling to face the full power of Great War battle rifle.  For those up to the challenge, however, the rewards are considerable.

 

It's the incompetence, stupid!

Looking at the emerging presidential election, I have to say that the positions on various issues don't interest me as much as the actual competence of the candidates.

That is to say, given a situation similar to what we have today, would the candidate demand heads roll or just float talking points and get in another round of golf?

This is the killer app for the GOP:  Democrats are too stupid to trust with government.  Obama lost the entire personnel files for the US government and yet no one has resigned in disgrace. 

At a minimum, the heads of all the implicated departments should be out of work.  But in the "Participation Medal" administration, we're all winners and it's unfair to make any one person pay for mistakes.

Even lefties are getting tired of this game and I think many of them secretly would vote for someone who knows how to keep the damn lights on. 

Anyhow, with 18 weary months left to go, I expect three things to happen (in no particular order):

- A major terrorist attack on American soil that succeeded entirely because TSA/Homeland Security was on lunch break.

- A recession even worse than the last one because all the slack has been drained out of the economy.

- ISIL will capture Baghdad, Damascus or both.  Probably both.  A big war is coming and our misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan will look tiny by comparison.

Our adversaries know we are weak and they will push their advantage.  Strap yourselves in, it's going to be a rough ride.

The Magna Carta Turns 800

Happy Birthday to one of the most important documents in human history: The Magna Carta (Latin for "the great charter of the liberties.")

This watershed pact between British citizens and their government, along with the thinkers of the British Enlightenment (Adam Smith, John Locke, David Hume, et al), greatly influenced and inspired the American Founding Fathers in their creation of the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution.

The Magna Carta basically established the rule of law as the name of the game. No longer could kings or princes rule with their petty whims, cronyism and inconsistent, unfair policies. The people had rights, and the government did not have the upper hand by default, as had been the case for ages.

In light of the widespread tyranny, authoritarian and arrogant governments that had oppressed the masses for centuries leading up to the 1215 Magna Carta adoption, it is incredible that England's King John agreed to sign on to the charter.

Washington Examiner columnist and British member of Parliament Daniel Hannan penned a brilliant essay on the Magna Carta in a recent edition of the Wall Street Journal. Hannan's perspective on the American Revolution is somewhat unique, but apparently spot-on:

"... The American Revolutionaries weren’t rejecting their identity as Englishmen; they were asserting it. As they saw it, George III was violating the “ancient constitution” just as King John and the Stuarts had done. It was therefore not just their right but their duty to resist, in the words of the delegates to the first Continental Congress in 1774, “as Englishmen our ancestors in like cases have usually done.”....

Hannan notes that the American revolutionaries were "fighting for the privileges bestowed on them by Magna Carta." The concept of "no taxation without representation," he writes, could be found in Article 12 of  the Great Charter: 'No scutage or aid is to be levied in our realm except by the common counsel of our realm."

Hannan also points out that corrupt British leaders, in particular the Stuart monarchs of the 17th century, cavalierly ignored many of the Magna Carta's principles, trampling on their citizens' rights to satisfy their own conceit. Sound familiar?

The philosophy that a "rule of law" should be the bedrock upon which our society functions, and the whole notion of common law and its vital components -- freedom of the press, private property rights, due process, regular elections and contract law, for example -- undergird American capitalism, free markets, independent thought, and ultimately, American exceptionalism. They are the foundation blocks that enabled American ingenuity, intelligence, productivity and drive to flourish, making this, by far, the greatest nation in world history.

But like a building's foundation blocks that can be eroded by water or weakened by earthquakes, America's underpinnings are not invincible. The lawlessness of our rogue president these past six years, with his capricious executive orders and utter disrespect for the constitution, is highly concerning. As is the American public's blithe acquiescence.