Rush to judgment – my usual mode. I need a general function for thinking like the “splee chekcer” for my writing.

That’s 3/4, not two thirds. 38 state minimum.

That makes the assumption that those calling the “Convention” are operating within the framework of the Constitution. That is a given that may not obtain. Remember, what counts is “the end result” to authoritarians, not the means. If they can produce a facade of a process that gives them the power that they want, they will declare the result legitimate.

Political cultures are a collective set of shared assumptions about how things are to be run. If those who control the levers of power have different assumptions, the end will have to be resolved by conflict because any restrictions on their actions implicit in the assumptions are no longer operative.

Depending solely on the text of a document after a regime decides it to be non-operative is not a successful bet.

And then there is the fact that a depressing number of states [like my own] have Democrat control of both houses of the legislature and the governorship. If “Democratic Centralism” is invoked, they would vote to reimpose chattel slavery, serfdom, and would repeal the XIXth Amendment if they were directed to from above and were also promised increased taxes. [OK, slight rhetorical flourish there, but state Democratic parties are not any more a haven for liberty than the national party; and the Republican party at all levels is a collection of gormless and ghoolie-less wonders.]

Subotai Bahadur

Now with proper “Capitalism”, Mexico would be making semi-auto versions and importing them to the US for legal sale!

It’s amazing we haven’t heard anything about a Constitutional Convention lately.

On topic: Yes, the ‘Chavez method’ of gaining ‘permanent’ control is spreading. Please recall that his first ‘re-election’ had ‘irregularities’ with their digital voting machines [a brief, but wide spread power outage, and then after the 're-boot'; victory...with oddly similar percentages at the end of the day.]. I vaguely remember other details, but the press coverage was a bit thin [other Carter's glowing endorsement of the results]; I suspect that bit of history warrants re-visiting; I sorta remember Chavez importing same DVM experts [from the US] to set up their ‘model’ digital voting system.

Who were the key players? Where are they now? What projects they been busy with since then?

That being said, the Chavez ‘election model’ is spreading with, not-so-oddly similar outcomes. Honduras is the first break in that chain; I’m hoping the interim government will have fully public the results of their ‘discoveries’.

Aside from a sizable left-leaning voting block, Mexico’s resisted the Bolivarian tide; I suspect Mexico’s VERY regulated voting system is the key reason.

The common factor is this: fidelity to the ‘constitutional’ structure. As long as the basic system remains intact [with ALL of it's organic 'firewalls'], the Chavez model falls flat. The minute the Left succeeds in knocking down key pillars, the system morphs from a governing ‘societal compact’ into a societal ‘cage’; the ‘keys’ of power passed from the ‘governed’, to the ‘government’.

We’ve lucky enough [as previously noted] to have very strong ‘firewalls’, but they only work as long as the ‘self-defense’ systems are intact.

A fact worth noting.

You seem to have an optical delusion at work.

A bipod is attached to the rifle but you can only see one leg of it.

The rifle is being rested on top of other gear, one of which is the water container with the hose dangling down. Gives the impression you reported of a hose attached to rifle, but is not.

BTW: That is a magazine-fed rifle, not a clip fed. A clip is a device that facilitates loading a magazine. A “clip-fed” rifle implies a fixed magazine and the rounds are either stripped from their holder into place (1903 Springfield) or loaded en bloc (M1 Garand). The latter is often referred to as a Mannlicher clip after the company to first employ it.

IMO: That Garand system is STILL the best
a rifleman can have. 8 rounds does not sound like enough. However, the determinant is not the number of shots between reloads but how fast you can reload if the so-and-so s are getting close. M1 is much faster than anything else.