Bloomberg’s Joshua Green, then employed at The Atlantic, was the first major reporter to profile Walz. In an interview with the then-congressional candidate, Green writes that in 2004, Walz left his hometown in Minnesota “to serve overseas in Operation Enduring Freedom.”It’s unclear if this is Green, a veteran reporter, omitting major facts, or if Walz, the interviewee, is selling Green on a particular narrative. Nonetheless, the assertion is incredibly misleading, as it leaves the reader under the impression that Walz served as boots on the ground in the Global War on Terror, when in reality, he merely deployed to Italy in 2003 for a six month stint.It gets much worse.
During a confrontation with the hated George W. Bush's team, Waltz engineered a claim that the Secret Service might "arrest" him over "opposing the president." He then challenged them in a way that made it into the press:
Green discusses a 2004 visit from former President George W. Bush to Gov. Walz’s hometown, in which a protesting Walz (who was still serving in the military) told the reporter about him supposedly demanding to speak to the then commander in chief.
“Walz thought for a moment and asked the Bush staffers if they really wanted to arrest a command sergeant major who'd just returned from fighting the war on terrorism,” Green writes.
This was before the Warning Order, so not only had he not "just returned from fighting the war on terrorism," he hadn't even been asked to fight the war on terrorism. We now know that, when asked, he found a way to evade his orders and responsibilities.
The piece closes with another set of outright lies by Waltz, one intended to disarm fellow veterans of the rifle with which they can best defend their families:
On Tuesday, The X account for the Kamala Harris campaign posted a video of Governor Walz discussing the need to disarm American citizens.
“We can research the impacts of gun violence. We can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war, are only carried in war,” he tells the audience.
1) The AR-15 is not a 'weapon of war,' but a purpose-designed civilian rifle capable of only semi-automatic fire.
2) It is therefore not the same as the M-16 or M-4 carbines that Waltz's fellow servicemen carried in war.
3) Waltz never went to war, and therefore never carried any sort of rifle at war.
4) In fact, Waltz not only didn't go to war, he abandoned his unit and left them to go without him even though as the assigned CSM he was their senior enlisted advisor. In other words it was his job to defend the interests of the enlisted servicemembers in that battalion to the commanding officer.
Instead, he abandoned them.
UPDATE: The National Guard officially disputes his claimed biography.
As Governor, he’s ex officio their commander, and you might expect them to avoid embarrassment for their commander if they could find a way. Far from taking steps to protect him they’re out with their top PAO to officially state that his claim is false. That underlines that he doesn’t have the respect of those who serve under him.
If we read the USSC decisions over time, the AR15 may conceivably be banned, because it is NOT a weapon of war.
ReplyDeleteThe M240 light machine gun, M4 automatic rifle, anti tank rockets and manpads however are clearly protected by the second amendment, although the constitution is routinely violated in this regard.
They have tried to invert the meaning, saying only "sporting arms" are protected, when in fact it is the reverse.
The sole reason for the right to keep and bear arms is to repulse tyranny by government.
And that is also the sole reason they try so hard to disarm the people.
The Miller decision was the only one that referenced military purpose, and it clearly states that weapons are protected insofar as they serve a militia function. I would argue that the AR-15 is uniquely suitable to militia service: it is widely available, can share parts and in many cases ammunition with military stores, and is so functionally similar to the military service rifle that basically every soldier or Marine could serve to instruct in its use.
ReplyDeleteNot being automatic makes it less than ideal for military infantry service, but it has advantages for militia. For one thing, if everyone on your militia is semi-automatic, you can target any full-auto sources of fire in a night-fight because you know they aren't yours. It preserves ammunition usage for militia units, which may lack military logistic chains. And it makes you take marksmanship seriously, which is a significant advantage that country boys can sometimes have even over professional soldiers if they've been using the rifle to feed their families as well.
Under Heller ("common use for lawful purposes") and Bruen ("historical justification") the cases are even stronger. The AR-15 is the most common rifle in the USA, and is almost exclusively used for lawful purposes (rifles and indeed longarms of all sorts are very rarely used in homicide or other gun crime; almost all firearm homicides are done with handguns); and it's been many decades now that it's been available widely to civilians.
It's also not the 'sole reason' to repel government tyranny, although that is a very good reason. It's also to be able to stand up militia to repel foreign invasion, organized crime, or similar threats. There are many good reasons for the Second Amendment.
ReplyDeleteIt appears that the Governor gives his opponents many opportunities for attacking him- merely by quoting him or documenting what he has done. What was Kamala thinking? But after remembering her many word salads, my question is answered.
ReplyDeleteAt least up into the mid-1800s, American militia also responded to riots (and were the fire brigade, too). Weapons have lots of good uses, and the 2nd is there for all of them.
ReplyDeleteGringo, my bet is either Walz lied to Harris's people just like he's being lying to the public, and they didn't have enough background or smarts to recognize his weasel wording, or he clued them in but they jointly decided he could keep faking it.
ReplyDeleteWhat was Kamala thinking?
ReplyDeleteI suspect part of her thinking was that the Progressive-Democratic Party's center left would get on her case if she selected Shapiro, and she's trying to maintain the public persona of Party unity.
Eric Hines
I propose the US Right wing flip to supporting an all out ban on a short list of military-grade weapons (all others to be expressly never-to-be-banned, a.k.a. allowed) : such list to be defined as all those weapons that Sergeant Walz can provably demonstrate he carried in a war zone.
ReplyDeleteBTW, the first comment was mine-
ReplyDeleteIt was poorly written, what I was trying to say was that according to the reasoning of the court, weapons of war were precisely the items that were not to be infringed.
And although there are other benefits to owning arms, self protection, etc, the writing at the time seems to indicate the the writers were primarily concerned with freedom.
Admittedly I am nowhere near as educated as the rest of the Hall. This is just what I have read.