This is our final edition before the Labor Day weekend gets underway. But this year doesn’t really seem much like a holiday, more like a pause before the craziness resumes.
I’ve never enjoyed writing “holiday” columns, but one’s especially tough. We’re 20 years and eight days from a date that is inescapably etched into my memory. Since September 11, 2001, my entire global view has been changed. Areas I once dreamed of visiting aren’t even on my bucket list anymore.
Of course, travel these days isn’t as hassle-free as it once was. Yesterday, I received my pre-flight instructions from our airline. It looked more like the checklist for a visit to a viral research facility than a welcome from a major public carrier.
Between the post-9/11 security measures and the covid-19 requirements, there’s precious little joy in travel.
But if you’re traveling, be aware of a few facts:
Be smart about your travel and remember, if you’re away from home, you’re the guest, not the host. Be a good guest instead of a crabby host.
New NICS numbers out yesterday seem to confirm the fact that outside the administration, there’s not much appetite for limiting the flow of domestic firearms. The newly-adjusted NSSF NICS numbers show a slight decline (2.1%) over 2020, but it’s still a very big number: 1,328,518.
All totaled, the adjusted numbers from January 2021-August 2021 reflects a 10.3% decrease over last year’s record-setting results. August’s numbers, FYI, were the second strongest on record, surpassed only by August of last year.
So what? Well, the 12.4 million background checks for the sale of firearms does a pretty solid job of destroying any narrative that “Americans are crying out for gun control.” When you factor in that women - including a growing number of black and brown women- are in those new numbers, you realize that people aren’t “crying out for gun control” they’re crying out for crime control.
As the NSSF’s Mark Oliva explains it, “the Biden administration is pushing to achieve their radical gun control agenda.” Adding, “Americans are choosing a different path.”
The path? “Americans acted upon their God-given right to keep and bear arms over 1.3 million times in August,” Oliva explains, “That sends a clear signal that Americans are choosing their gun rights over the Biden administration’s gun control.”
Speaking of not fitting the “accepted media narrative” my friend Frank Miniter has written another cracking-good adventure novel, The Deep State Revolution. Frank’s created an action hero out of a very “against-type” computer hacker, but stereotyping is seldom an accurate reflection of real life. Frank’s a stickler for details, and he gets the geeky-side of computers and guns right. That’s a big improvement compared to many authors.
The Deep State Revolution is fiction- today. But it’s disturbingly close to what could happen if we don’t wake up and pay attention.
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It’s also more than realistic for a guy with Sid McDaniels “skills” to move -easily- between the worlds of corporate espionage, DC power politics and high-level personal security.
It is, simply stated, a terrific yarn.
That having been said, it’s also deeply concerning to someone who’s spent most of his adult life in journalism.
That’s because the leap from today’s headlines to Frank’s plot line isn’t nearly so far as most people would like to believe. It’s not dystopian fiction, but in light of the current trajectory of the country, it is a highly cautionary tale.
Here’s the Amazon link. If you’re looking for a piece of entertaining fiction that may have you squirming about our future, this is it. It has earned permanent spot on my bookshelf.
One day closer to the weekend…but we’ll keep you posted.
— Jim Shepherd