2010 – Page 126 – Shall Not Be Questioned

More on the Caving Gun Club

PAIndependent has done some research into the Keith Olbermann-loving Elstonville Sportsmanâ€™s Association and finds that their latest excuses for canceling the LiveFreePA event don’t really match their history.

The club’s board of directors met Monday night “to discuss the recent events that have unfolded in the media pertaining to the event scheduled for May 8,” according to Steve Lowe, an Elstonville board member. “Elstonville is a sportsmen’s association and will not be affiliated in any way with political actions and/or statements to the media or the general public. We…will not be associated with events such as this.”

Get that, they never do anything political. Which is why they hosted LiveFreePA in 2009 with Ted Nugent. Sure. Oh, and there’s that pesky fact that they let a Republican lawmaker hold a fundraising shoot there in 2008. And who could forget that they are hosting another directly partisan fundraiser again the following week?

The people who criticized the event would be the first to shut down the gun club if given the opportunity. As mentioned yesterday, there’s Keith Olbermann. But locally, it was Democratic gubernatorial candidate Joe Hoeffel who complained. First, he’s no one. He was once a Congressman who no one liked, so they booted him out of office. He’s now a County Commissioner just outside of Philadelphia who is running somewhere between last and next to last place in a crowded primary. He has endorsed a whole range of gun control.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE8lrejGuac[/youtube]

I suspect that Elstonville Sportsmanâ€™s Association is suffering from a problem that I’ve seen at other area gun clubs. Namely, that they are scared of politics and “new” things. They want to sit down comfortably and stick their heads in the sand while the world changes around them. It doesn’t matter that they people they cave to are actively leading the fight to take their guns, close gun clubs, and kill the shooting sports culture.

At the very least, their board is on the record lying to pro-gun groups about banning all political events while turning around and hosting partisan fundraisers. I’m not sure if that makes their actions any better, or actually worse.

I’ve worked with gun clubs in several states. I am most concerned about the health of the clubs I’ve seen here in Pennsylvania. Some of them actively try to keep shooters out, others pretend that politics doesn’t exist even when it surrounds and threatens their sport, and then you have Elstonville which thinks that giving into the Joe Hoeffel agenda is more important than supporting an organization that has promoted liberty and firearm freedom in Harrisburg. Now they are putting up the flag of no politics ever, which means they will forever close any access they had to local pro-gun politicians.

I’ve heard it best described as the need for a hundred mini-Cincinnati revolts (i.e. the Annual Meeting fight that lead to the creation of NRA-ILA & finally got gun owners involved in politics). Gun clubs should be about the shooting sports first and foremost. But because politics will mean the difference between prosperity in the culture and taking the very guns we use to compete and defend our lives, it means that clubs cannot sit out of the game. In a healthy club, members even find out that a) political work isn’t very hard, and b) it can even be a little fun, especially if it’s social and there is food involved. By sitting out of the game, club leaders are throwing their own members under the bus. Members shouldn’t sit idly by and let that happen.

Getting Rid of POC Systems

There’s been talk among pro-gun voices in Pennsylvania about eliminating PICS, the state point-of-contact background check system. It looks like there’s an active effort in Colorado to do just that. It’s being touted as a cost saving measure, because the state would save approximately 1.7 million dollars by relying on the federal system. In this time of tight state budgets, the money argument is probably the winner. The only difficulty we have here in PA is that our PICS system is being used for a number of different reasons, including conducting background checks for teachers. That complicates the issue a bit more for using the cost saving argument, at least here in Pennsylvania.

The main reason for doing this here in PA, is that the state system has more downtime than the federal system, and when the system is down all gun sales are halted, and we revert to the Brady waiting period. Since very few dealers are willing to do default proceeds after the waiting period, this essentially halts all gun sales for the duration of the outage. The other reason is that it would interfere greatly with the State Police using PICS to keep a registry of all guns sold in the Commonwealth. The legislature intended to prevent this eventually, but the State Police found a legal argument around it. If you’ve bought a gun in the past decade, they know about it. We’ve had individuals have guns seized from them in traffic stops because local policeÂ erroneouslyÂ believe the State Police database is a comprehensive registry. This has been difficult to remedy legislatively.

Open Carry Victory in Oklahoma

It’s won house approval. I support this bill. I don’t personally like open carry, but I believe it should be legal. You still need a concealed carry permit, but if you have one, you have a choice. As the article mentions, which is true, very few people, practically are going to choose to do it.

Now We’re a Cancer

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed, who was recently sold to creditors. They got a veteran to do the op-ed, because who can argue with a veteran, after all.

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.