May 2011 – Page 14 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Talking to Pennsylvania’s Gun Owners

Since I was representing PAGunRights.com this year at the NRA meeting, I decided to do a little research on attendees. I picked up my media credentials on Thursday, got permission to film without an escort, and didn’t step back into the press office again during the weekend. When I wasn’t interviewing NRA protesters, I was interviewing NRA members from Pennsylvania to conduct a bit of a survey on their civic engagement with elections, campaigns, and voting.

I also questioned people on whether their mayors were members of MAIG and whether their members of Congress were pro or anti-gun. The good news is that people overwhelmingly got those questions right. The only wrong MAIG response was from someone who thought his current mayor was a member, but his mayor is not part of Bloomberg’s coalition of anti-gun mayors. So that’s okay for him to be wrong since it’s good news. :) On the Congressman question, a couple of folks from Pittsburgh were mistaken by saying their guy is pro-gun. But, if they claim to be “from Pittsburgh,” but are really from any suburbs, then their actual Congressman may not be anti-gun.

Apologies for some shaky camera work. I should probably remember the tripod next time.

Free Targets

From Lucky Gunner, via SayUncle who notes: “I guess the Osama one might be a hit, if you practice going for the left eye socket. I see an e-postal match for that.”

Concealed Carry Passes Committee in Illinois

It’s headed for a floor vote on Thursday. Quinn is threatening to veto:

“This is not in any way a public safety measure this bill, this is the opposite of public safety. Loaded concealed handguns in the possession of private citizens will lead to more danger and more bad things happening,” the Democratic governor said.

But Rep. Brandon Phelps, D-Harrisburg, the bill’s chief sponsor, said he is close to securing a veto-proof, 71-vote majority. He plans to call a vote Thursday in the House.

If this happens, it’ll be by skin of teeth. If you live in Illinois, put the pressure on, especially if your rep is one of those down state Democrats. It’s not unusual to lose several votes upon a veto. Pressure from constituents is going to be the only thing in that case that keeps their vote.

Campus Carry Goes Down In Tennessee

Thanks to Instapundit for reporting on the fate of the bill. I can promise you our opponents will be rising in jubilation over killing it in Arizona, Texas, and now Tennessee this year, but they should find as little comfort in beating us back as the Japanese Army did at driving MacArthur out of the Philippines. We shall return… next year.

Who would have imagined that, following Virginia Tech, the other side would get virtually nothing and our side would give birth to a campus carry movement? But they can’t. They are so busy fighting our rear guard actions, they are very close to losing on the carry issue in Illinois. Think about that. The best the other side can hope for, the most they can celebrate, is that for one more year, they’ve stopped us from opening up carry in universities and colleges.

We Have the Same Goal

Says Colin Goddard in and interview with Northern Arizona News:

Most people think if they send their child to a nice school in a nice area, then gun violence wonâ€™t affect them. But I was put into the most dangerous situation in my life in my French class, and I was almost killed.

I wanted to share my experience of gun violence and show other people to help them become educated and not allow gun violence to happen to you directly. I donâ€™t want people to have to go down the same road that I did, with the same conclusion.

Except I want to achieve the goal by allowing people the choice of how best to defend themselves, including carrying a gun if they do so lawfully and responsibly. Colin wants to solve this problem by promoting the fantasy that rules and policies stop madmen. The loser who shot Colin passed several background checks, patiently got around Virginia’s gun rationing law which allows only one handgun a month, violated the Commonwealth of Virginia’s laws on carrying a firearm without a license, and finally violated Virginia Tech’s policy of forbidding firearms on campus. These laws utterly failed Colin Goddard, and his solution is to try it again, but with vigor. Sounds like a brilliant plan!

Boomershoot Fireball

Looks like Ry Jones made quite a fireball at this year’s Boomershoot. One of these days I need to make it out there.

Apparently I’m Big in Pittsburgh

One thing about being at Annual Meeting is that I’m mostly cut off from what’s going in the world. Apparently we made the news in Pittsburgh over Sandwichgate. I was also told by other bloggers the hot dog people were thrilled with the increase in business, and Primanti Bros. apparently wasn’t looking too busy.

I doubt very much the media was interested in helping me spread the word, I’d be willing to bet their angle was NRA attacking local icons, but all they effectively did was let the Pittsburgh media market know about the controversy. Being seen as anti-gun in Western PA isn’t a very good business model.

Some Announcements

Many thanks to Bitter for filling in this afternoon. I did not want to announce this before Annual Meeting, but here goes:

My company is liquidating. Everyone’s last day is Thursday, except me and a few other key people. I will be retained to handle the liquidation until the end up June, and then I get a generous severance package. But that’s conditional on me staying until the end of June. I have planned very well for this, so I will be fine. But it turns out liquidation is actually a lot of work, at least for now. I’m not quite ready to begin a job search yet, but will once my termination date is within a month (can’t leave before termination and keep the severance, and don’t want to tell someone I’m not available until July.)
I’ve been thinking and now am leaning quite heavily toward a rebranding of the blog. This won’t mean much to regular readers. Same old crap, just with a different name and theme. Links will still work, and all that. Same archives. Same URL will still work, though there will be a new one registered for the new name. I will begin to take ads. Reason I’m seriously considering this is because I do need another source of income to help defray the costs associated with keeping the blog running, and because I’m really tired of explaining the name of the blog to people, and having people look at me funny when I tell them my blog’s name.

Other than that, don’t expect much to change. I’m not begging for money or jobs yet. This company has been rocky for a while, and as SayUncle will tell you, I’ve been worried about my job for as long as I’ve known him, which is going on four years now. I’ve planned well. Things will work out.

NRA Protests

I’ve seen a lot of misinformation put out about the protests against NRA’s annual meeting during the last few days which is a little odd since there were only a few pro-gun people who actually attended the protest to find out what was happening. It wasn’t something you could watch from the windows of the convention center or see from the sidewalks anywhere near the main hall. The actual protest & rally took place about a mile from the convention center, and almost every person there marched all the way back to the Westin across the street from the convention center.

I’ve seen some people try to claim there were only 30 people, and that the media is lying when they say around 200 people marched against NRA. There were easily 200 people, and I might even say closer to 250 or more. And almost every single one of them not only came out for the rally, but they marched for a mile in the heat and bright sun. (Seriously, I got sunburned and I wasn’t out there that long on the warmest day of the convention.) I took video which I’m currently editing. I interviewed quite a few protest attendees during their march, and I have to say that it was a very enlightening experience.

Before I get into the details of why people told me they were out there marching against NRA, I just wanted to set the record straight on the numbers game and who was involved. We had 71,139 members come through those convention hall doors. We don’t need to lie about the other side to claim victory in this case. I also know that someone somewhere mentioned that Ceasefire wasn’t involved, something that could lead people to believe that they have basically given up. That’s absolutely not the case. They were decked out in their organization t-shirts, and their director even addressed the rally. They are still around and planning to fight.

We win because of larger numbers, passionate grassroots activists, and people who are willing to turn up to the polls to vote for freedom. Trust me, the other side knows this. One key theme in Saturday’s rally was that the NRA wins because we get involved and the politicians listen to us. If we try to belittle the other side & their efforts to motivate their base, we risk missing the point where they could become relevant if we become complacent.

(Photo credit: Adam Z. who, along with his friend who is new to the issue, hopped in a cab with me up to the rally & marched down taking photos while I interviewed protesters.)

Not Free of Criminals

You have to be a bold thief to steal from a room full of gun people. Apparently, the exhibition services company retained for the NRA Annual Meeting appears to have found two bold thieves.

Two men working for an exhibition service at the National Rifle Association convention over the weekend were arrested late Sunday for stealing two sets of elk antlers.

According to Pittsburgh police, the antlers were stolen from a vendor’s booth while the operator was waiting to pack up his truck at the loading dock of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. …

The theft was reported about 8:45 p.m. Sunday. Security officers in the area spotted two men on the east side of the convention center walking with the antlers, and they were detained.

Stephen C. Lee, 44, of Cumberland, Md., and Gary C. Felts, 49, of Joppa, Md., are charged with theft and criminal conspiracy, and taken to the Allegheny County Jail.

Both men worked for Brede Exposition Services, of Beltsville, Md.

Antlers. Seriously, how do you even pretend to just walk off with antlers?