May 2010 – Page 15 – Shall Not Be Questioned

PA Gun Club Caves to Keith Olbermann

Let’s pretend you are a member of a gun club. Keith Olbermann attacks you because you’re going to allow right-of-center folks to come to your shooting range to shoot guns & very possibly say less than pleasant things about far left policies & socialism. Why would you cave to Keith Olbermann? He’s not your friend. He doesn’t even believe in the Second Amendment and declared SCOTUS Justice Antonin Scalia as the “Worst Person in the World” for writing the Heller opinion.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STwsbUwcO4U[/youtube]

Apparently, if you’re on the board of Elstonville Sportsmen’s Association, you vote to cave to Keith Olbermann. Really?

They were to host a fundraising shoot by the Commonwealth Foundation next weekend, and part of the arranged fun was to include targeting a car with bad policy names written on it – cap and trade, Obamacare, and card check. The idea of conservatives blowing holes through their policy positions painted on the side of a junker car (perhaps a clunker not turned in during Cash for Clunkers?) sent Keith Olbermann’s head spinning, along with some others in the media.

Just minutes ago, Commonwealth Foundation announced that Elstonville’s leaders have pulled the plug on the event because of pressure from people who don’t even support their right to have a gun club.

In the 11th hour, under intense pressure from those who would deny the freedoms in the First and Second Amendments, the host of the Commonwealth Foundation’s second annual LiveFreePA celebration pulled the plug. Due to the short notice, the Commonwealth Foundation will reschedule LiveFreePA for the fall, at a club that stands tall for our rights and freedoms.

The Elstonville Sportsmen’s Association’s decision is regrettable, but more regrettable are the attacks on this lighthearted and safe event by left-wing pundits and gun-control advocates. This reminds us all that if the inalienable rights of citizens to express and protect themselves are to survive, those who cherish them must stand firm against those who seek to erode or limit those rights. This incident underscores how vulnerable our freedom truly is, and the need to celebrate and defend it anew.

Seriously? The gun club has no statement on the matter, so if there is more to this, they are keeping their lips locked.

Bloomberg Grandstanding

He’s appearing before a committee urging that we deny constitutional rights without due process. The funny thing is theÂ committeeÂ he’s appearing before can’t do anything about the legislation he wants. Normally that kind of thing goes through the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Leahy, who seems to be kissing up to gun owners these days, with Sessions as the ranking member. I’m going to guess they aren’t going to give Bloomberg’s favored bill a hearing, and Reid certainly wants to keep that bill off the floor.

So it’s the Homeland Security and Government for Bloomberg, which is chaired by Lieberman, with Collins as the ranking member. Â Neither true friends of the Second Amendment. Fortunately for us, Coburn is on that committee, and I think he’ll be having none of Bloomberg’s crap. Interesting to see will be how Scott Brown acts. I expect McCain to be tough on Bloomberg as well, since he’s in a tough primary race this year, and he’ll wants to look more conservative than thou, so to speak.

Making Sausage in Illinois

The Chicago establishment, in a last ditch attempt to keep the gun issue alive, are trying to run numerous bills in Springfield. Thirdpower has some video of NRA’s Illinois Liaison,Â Todd Vandermyde giving as well as taking at the state house. Todd has done a very effective job at helping keep the Chicago establishment at bay on the gun issue, and it’s been quite a while since they’ve been able to score a major victory there. Watching this unfold is a lot like watching sausage be made. It’s not pretty, and when legislators get it in their heads to do something, your best bet is to try to herd the cats in a more productive and less damaging direction.

Militias Less Popular than Socialism

More Americans have negative associations with the word “militia” than the word “socialism.” And it’s not like socialism is a popular idea among Americans. I doubt this matters to most militia leaders, except maybe the ones who are getting better at public relations, but it would seem that for a vast majority of Americans, preaching against socialism from the militia soapbox is just going to drive more people toward the socialists.

There’s a thread within the movement that would like to suggest we’ve moved this issue from the fringes. I think that’s largely nonsense, because it mischaracterizes political struggle. We’ve moved the movement forwards because we’ve been very successful at reframing our ideals and ideas in a manner that the vast unwashed masses can relate to. Instead of talking gun control, we switched the subject to criminal control. Instead of speaking of preserving hunting, we speak of preserving the right to self-preservation. Instead of talking about jailing ATF agents, as Larry Pratt did at the rally last week, we speak of reforming the agency.

It’s not as emotionally satisfying as righteous battle against the dark forces of evil on the other side, but it’s effective. The vast majority of voters are not ideological. They don’t make up their minds until right before the election (the PA Dem primary is two weeks from now, and 1/3rd are still undecided), and there’s vast political ignorance among many voters. Winning in politics is bringing these folks along, little by little, either into your camp, or at least not in opposition to you. This allows your issue to work its base in order to swing close elections. If you want to do this, you need to reach them with a message that doesn’t turn them off. What this poll shows is the militia ideas turn them off.

Chest Beating

So much in politics can really be explained as the same reason a Gorilla beats his chest. It’s a display, intended to scare rivals or assert dominance. Since it’s primary season we can expect to see a lot of that. Paul Helmke’s latest bit on the Indiana primary, which is today, falls into that category. Helmke notes the NRA favored candidates are expected to lose, noting:

Tomorrow’s results in the Indiana GOP primaries could tell us how strong the anti-DC mood is with the GOP in the heartland, and whether the NRA’s opposition or support makes any difference.

For another perspective on the Indiana primary race, you can look at Jim Geraghty’s summary here. My feeling is that it’s a three way race, which always complicates things. The pro-gun vote will be split between two candidates. But this is far from a race where there’s a wide open lead. NRA generally won’t waste money on a lost cause, so this will indeed be interesting to see. All three candidates have wide open leads over Brad Ellsworth, so in this instance, the primary is pretty much the general election for theÂ Hoosiers.

Look for Brady to play this card often. They are beating their chests to show that NRA is not so tough. This will be fertile ground too. NRA is going to be getting behind some pro-gun Democrats who are likely to lose their seats because of their votes on other issues. Oddly enough, the 2010 elections I think will not be a good year for NRA, in terms of their win percentages. The biggest loss is likely to be Harry Reid, who is the only reason we’ve accomplished anything in the 111th Congress. His likely successor is either Dick Durbin of Illinois or Chuck Schumer of New York. Either of those two leading the Senate, we better hope we don’t replace these pro-gun Dems with squishy Republicans. I hope all the Hoosiers get out there today to vote.

CeaseFire PA Touting Candidates for Governor

The Pocono Record is fast becoming CeaseFire Pennsylvania’s most helpful media outlet,Â practically publishing press releases from them talking about how wonderful all the Democratic candidates for Governor are.Â Here is CeaseFire PA’s Voters Guide.Â I think it’s very kind of them to help gun owners out by letting us know who not to vote for. Jack Wagner is the best Democrat, and he only supports Lost and Stolen, a statewide ban on assault weapons, and using the no-fly list to deny Pennsylvanians their constitutional rights. And they are openly touting this. Even Rendell ran from his record on guns and shut up about the issue when he ran for Governor. Now they are openly opposing us and daring us to defeat them.

No matter who I vote for in the GOP primary, I’m going to be 100% behind the winner in the Governor’s race. The step after openly opposing us in an election, if we can’t beat them, is openly opposing us from the Governor’s mansion, with the argument that the “NRA couldn’t beat me.” And they will have a point. If the NRA can’t threaten politicians with electoral defeat for crossing them, the game will be over in PA very quickly, and all those refugees we’ve taken from Jersey will have to go find another bastion of freedom.

Standards of Review in State RKBA Cases

Dave Kopel and Clayton Cramer have yet another law review coming out on how state courts have developed the Right to Keep and Bear Arms found in their own state constitutions. You can read more about this over on Volokh.

Guns at Walmart: The Good and the Bad

Arma Borealis has a post up on buying a gun at Walmart. He’s from Alaska, and I’ve heard that Walmart even sells pistols up in Alaskan stores. He complains about being escorted out with the gun. That’s something even Cabelas does. I’m guessing it’s an insurance issue more than a shoplifting issue. He also mentions Walmart’s deal with MAIG, which is why I’ll never buy a gun there.

Turning Around?

Dave Hardy thinks we may be going backwards on gun rights. Backwards to before the 60s, that is:

Add in DC v. Heller, and the likely outcome of McDonald v. Chicago. The press becoming almost even handed on the gun issue. I think we’re looking at an enormous cultural shift here. It’s a reversal of the shift that occurred in the 1960s. In 1960, firearm ownership was quite acceptable. President Kennedy was happy to accept life membership in the NRA. Somewhere in the early 60s, the American Bar Assn gave an award for a pro-individual rights article on the Second Amendment. And you’ve probably heard we ancients speak of the days when universities had rifle teams and students thought nothing of bringing guns to school. Then came the 60s — three assassinations in 1963-68, the summer riots, and by the later 60s guns were the source of all social ills, and anyone who would defend their ownership was a neanderthal, a fool, or a selfish social menace.

Fifty years later, we may be switching back.

The issue has come a long long way even from the time I first became aware of it. The earliest recollection I have in regards to the debate on gun control was the fight over the Brady Bill. But probably the think that convinced me that gun control was pretty much a load of BS was the fight over the assault weapons bans, which started in the late 80s. Even as a kid from a non-gun-owning family I knew what the difference was between fully automatic and semi-automatic, and knew what they were selling to civilians were semi-auto.Â Nonetheless, there’s the major networks trying to bilk the public by showing fully automatic weapons. Things were still rough in the late 199s, but since the turn of the century everything has changed dramatically.

Blog fodder is a goodÂ bellwether, I think, and the amount of things I’ve had to write about, in regards to media bias, has fallen off substantially. The media is largely ignoring the gun issue, as I would expect when everyone is worried about the country going broke, a crappy economy, and losing their jobs. Another big contributing factor Obama has ignored the issue, and refrained from using the bully pulpit on the issue of guns. That benefits us. Dave might be right. I do think there’s been a culture shift. Maybe we are headed back to the future.

Lack of Posting

Sorry for the short on posts today. Still dealing with fall out from last week’s culling at work. Going to be busy for a while, but most of the time that shouldn’t impact the blogging schedule too much. But it does mean I’ll be in front of a computer from the time I wake up until I go to sleep. At least until Annual Meeting in Charlotte comes around.