Month: September 2011

Kaveman notes they are looking for a few good (wo)men. Concentrating on building grassroots is the top priority of their next President. I hate to break to the Bradys but grassroots are generally a bottom up thing, not a top down thing. NRA exists from the bottom up. It did not create its grassroots, it’s grassroots created it (or took it over, more accurately). I don’t predict Brady will have much success in this, because they are going about it wrong. The big disadvantage they have over us is that anti-gun is not a hobby. Shooting is, and one that is practiced by millions of Americans. That gives a natural base of support on which you can build a grassroots-based movement.

What, strategically, are the Brady’s are facing? They need grassroots, but they are also desperate for funding. There are communities who would probably be natural sources of anti-gun activism and energy, but those are going to tend to dwell in inner cities and aren’t going to be worth much as sources of funding. The natural source of funding for anti-gun groups are going to be upper middle class to upper class urbanites and suburbanites, who honestly don’t have much in common with the folks who will end up being the organization’s public face when it comes time to put people on the ground. Brady’s natural funding reservoirs are more interested in gun control as a means of battling other elites, who’s political attitudes and lifestyles they find revolting, than they are interested in allying with inner city leaders to combat violence in those communities. To maintain themselves, the Brady Campaign will have to seek fewer donors with deeper pockets, probably drawing heavily from the issue friendly foundations, who would be happy to fund an inner city grassroots anti-gun/peace movement. There may even be a few wealthy individual donors out there who’d be willing to contribute money. But my feeling is the Brady Campaign is not going to be any more successful with this new strategy than they were under Paul Helmke. If anything, I think they will be less successful.

… to gun violence. Only to hysterical individuals like our opponents who lately seem to be following the old adage of “When in trouble or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.”

As quoted by the Associated Press he said the way the bullets come out of those AK47s is scary.

I don’t know about you, but if it’s aimed in my direction, the way bullets come out of any gun is scary.

That contention is that with everyone loaded for bear, we would stop a lot of these unwarranted attacks on civilization. Right! What the man who might have been a hero did is follow an instinct that nine out of ten other persons in his shoes would. When under assault by superior firepower, the best solution is to duck and run for the nearest cover and stay there.

He was not under assault. He was in his BBQ joint across the street. None of the people who were under assault were armed.

When he was through, he came outside and further demonstrated his prowess by spraying bullets through shopping center windows before killing himself as the police arrived. That brought the gun’s total for the day to four including the shooter. Not terribly impressive considering what those things can do.

That’s because all guns do is fire small bits of lead at extreme velocities. It’s the killer’s tactics that make the big difference, and if the killer has good tactics, he can easily accomplish his feat with matches and gasoline if that’s all that’s available. What keeps body counts down in this situation is a fast response by other armed individuals, such as the police, and the incompetence of the shooter at target selection.

How’s that for action Wayne La Pierre? For the un-anointed in the gun religion, he is the chief heat packer for the National Rifle Association and its followers. You know those who oppose any reasonable restraint on the dissemination of firearms here and across borders like Mexico unless they can find a way to use the issue to beat up on law enforcement.

The dismissal of the Fast and Furious scandal tells me that Dan K. Thomasson doesn’t give a whit about gun violence either. None of them do, and you’re a fool if you believe the facade. Guns are icky, and we have to get them out of society. That’s what they stand for. Nothing else.

You’d think the anniversary of 9/11 would be above political posturing, and should be about remembering the victims, rather than pushing a political agenda, but pretty clearly the Brady Campaign does not think so. Have they no shame? Pushing bills after a high profile tragedy is standard operating procedure for the Brady folks, but it’s hard fathom anyone could think attempting to usurp the tenth anniversary of 9/11 for political gain is anything other than disgusting.

And they wonder why they no longer have the pull with the main stream media they used to. I don’t think even the left-leaning media would want to touch a story that would appear to try to divert attention away from the tenth anniversary of a huge national tragedy to focus attention on a group’s public policy agenda that is not even remotely related to that tragedy. This is really shameful.