2007 – Page 76 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Day Two

I’m continuing my attendance of the NRA board meeting into the afternoon, at which time I pick up Bitter, then drive back to Pennsylvania.Â I’ll comment more later.Â Â Sorry for the sparse posting, but I do think it’s important for bloggers to have a voice within NRA, and for NRA to be able to communicate with us and our community.

Just so you know, board member committee meetings are open to all NRA members.Â Anyone can come listen in.Â Executive committee or executive sessions are restricted only to the board, but the majority of the stuff going on here is accessible by any NRA member.Â Anyone who wants to come see how the organization works should plan to attend one.

Interesting Day

So today I attended the legislative committee session. Much of what was talked about was in regards to HR2640, and some matters that are appearing in the states like the “victimized twice” laws, forcing the reporting of stolen firearms. I was also quite pleased that the NRA is realizing that they need to have a better presence in the new media, and want to work more closely with bloggers.

At lunch, I found myself sitting next to Congressman Harold Volkmer. Yes, that Congressman Volkmer. Nice guy, and considering I regularly take advantage of the law he spearheaded, which consists of allowing gun shows, and safe transport provisions, it was quite a thrill to talk to him over lunch.

We joined up with Dave Kopel, Dave Hardy, and a few other folks for drinks afterward. Nice time. I got to meet Legal Bitch, the newest bitch girl. She’s very smart, and very cute, so be sure to check over there regularly for her posts.

I also met up with Tom King, of the NYSRPA.Â Tom is a good guy, and I feel bad for being kind of hard on him as a new blogger.Â Apparently our friend Jadegold sent him a rather horrid e-mail.Â While I have no plans to ban Jadegold, as long as he’s reasonable here, I understand now why Tom did it.

Sorry For the Light Posting

I’m actually in Arlinton attending the NRA board of directors meeting as a guest of one of the board members. Very interesting so far. Not much time to be online, so I have to cut thigns short.

Do We Need To Make Common Cause With Non-Activists?

I’ve often said that NRA needs to be a big tent organization.Â Â We have to make common cause with people who are mostly on our side, but might not be willing to take things as far as you or I would.Â This would include hunters, many in law enforcement, traditional shooters, and people new to the issue.Â Â We have to reach out to these people and work with them, rather than sizing up their second amendment purity, and choosing to ostracize them if they don’t meet sufficient muster.

It’s no secret that one of my big pet issues is repealing the 1986 Hughes Amendment, and allowing new registration of transferable machine guns under the NFA. Â Does this mean I support the NFA? Â Well, not entirely. Â But it does mean I’m willing to accept it for now because a more realistic goal is getting rid of the Hughes Amendment. Â By standing on the NFA, even if I don’t really agree with it, it helps to build a larger coalition against the part you do want to get rid of in the short term.

One of the traps we tend to fall into as gun-rights activists is believing that we are not a very very small minority. Â If you’ve ever looked at GOA’s Form 990, based on estimates from income reported from membership dues, they would have, at most, about 30,000 members.Â Even, absent NRA’s existence, GOA could pick up another 20,000 member of dedicated, hard-core, no-compromise activists, that’s stil 50,000, and politicians in Washington will safely ignore you. Â This is why it is necessary to reach out to less hard-core members of the shooting community; we simply don’t have the numbers in order to be politically successful.

The failure to build a “big tent” is no where more apparent than in the Libertarian Party, where a dedicated group of hard-core activists have worked very hard to build an organization that’s based on strong principles, and fields candidates based on their ideological purity.Â The Libertarian Party also can’t win elections, and isn’t building a movement.Â Libertarian principles are now safely ignored by politicians.

Let’s not let this happen to the gun-rights movement.

How It Went

Despite my fear of public speaking, I managed to force myself to stand up and have my say at our club’s board meeting.Â Â Sadly, I don’t think I had much impact, because the board indicated that the ballot measure to end our club’s 100% NRA participation was a done deal.Â I urged the board to allow NRA to send someone up to talk to us.Â A few indicated NRA just wanted to talk about HR2640, and it wasn’t only about HR2640.Â They also claim NRA didn’t want to talk to membership, but only a few select board members.Â Â That’s the the impression I got from NRA, but several board members also confirmed this was the case.

So in short, the vote will go ahead.Â NRA will not be talking to us, it seems.Â There was, at least, one other board member who I managed to talk to.Â I have two people who are sympathetic to my cause I didn’t have before.

Hi-Point Pistol of Choice in NYC

Ahab has a pretty good bit on how the City of New York is claiming that the High-Point C9 is the weapon of choice for the street urchins.Â This doesn’t really surprise me.Â I actually own one Hi-Point product; their 9mm carbine.Â It’s actually not a bad shooter.Â Quality on the parts isn’t too hot, but the design is simple, and surprisingly reliable.

Apparently they go on the street for about $250 bucks, which is a bit higher than the price on the legal market. Â There’s going to be some risk premium charged by traffickers to make the possibility of multiple felony counts worth their while.

High Gas Prices Make you Thin?

Clayton Cramer has this to say about the claim:

I find this claim implausible. Like nearly all human behavior changes caused by financial incentives, it operates at the margins. Where I live, the only regular destination that I can reach by foot rather than by car is my mailbox, which is a bit more than half a mile away. When I lived in West Boise, my job was 1 1/2 miles away. While I very occasionally walked or bicycled, cost was not a factor in the decision–simply because driving 1 1/2 miles was very, very cheap (about 3 1/2 gallons a month), and unless gasoline rose by $10 per gallon, the reduced driving cost was more than made up for with the inconvenience of not being to zip home to have lunch with my wife, and the cost of eating in the company cafeteria.

I agree.Â One of the great ironies for me, when I was actively biking last year, was that I was spending more gas to bike than I would have if I just stayed home. Â I enjoy both cycling and hiking, and both of them, for me, involve taking my bike, or my feet and backpack somewhere that I can do it.Â I can cycle around my neighborhood, but that gets old.Â To leave the neighborhood on the roads around here is taking your life into your hands.

So for me, higher gas prices mean less hiking and cycling, and thus I get fatter, not thinner.

Clay Birds May Now Fear Me

I went to Pistol People today to pick up the Citori I bought from Red’s Trading Post, as a screw you to Jesse Jackson, The Rainbow PUSH Coalition and The Brady Campaign because of their very pathetic August 28th events.

I can’t wait to get it out to the range and break some clays. Sadly, that won’t be for a little bit, since I have other things to deal with in the short term. Our club has Monday night trap shoots, which I’m going to start participating in, once I brush up on my shooting a bit.

Glad That’s Over

I’ve completed my crown lengthening.Â I think the procedure is a little bit worse than root canal, in terms of having your mouth pried open, and what they have to do to you.Â The tools that were going into my mouth were a bit frightening, to say the least.

The good news is that, so far, I’m not in awful pain, and the novocaine has pretty much worn off by now.Â The real pain didn’t come until I had to pay the bill.

Tomorrow is D-Day

Sorry for the light, or rather, relatively brainless posting this week so far.Â Â I’m off for the rest of the week from work.Â Â Tomorrow I get my crown lengthening done, which leaves me in great angst, since I fear any unknown major dental procedure.Â But the periodontist told me that I should plan to take the rest of the day off work, and who am I to complain?

In the evening, I have a club meeting to attend where I have to try to convince our board that, at an NRA affiliated club, the NRA ought to be allowed to come and answer questions and address member concerns before our club votes to end the 100% member requirement.Â I’m not very good at this type of public speaking, so it make me rather nervous.Â Throw the fact that I don’t know how well I’ll even be able to speak after the dentist, and it gets even worse.

After that, it’s off to Virginia. Â I plan to attend at least one session of the NRA board of directors meeting (it’s open to all members, actually, if you ever have time to attend, it might be worth your while). Â But of course, that’s not the only reason to go; it’s also a good place to meet up with fellow bloggers.

Friday we’re coming back up here.Â Bitchy Mom and Bitter’s grandmother are coming up to do the Philly thing. Â All in all a very busy week, I’m afraid. Â Which translates into more “linky no thinky”.