Go have a look over at Miguel’s. Trust me, it’s worth the click.
Year: 2011
What’s Up With Jan Brewer?
I don’t know much about Arizona politics, but Brewer vetoing two pro-gun bills in a row tells me she’s in a lame duck term, or isn’t interested in running again. She signed Constitutional Carry, but that was before her re-election campaign. The Governor may very well feel she’s done enough for us, and since she isn’t running again, doesn’t have to care what we could do to her come election time.
A Sea of Red
The Bradys are touting new state rankings for 2010, which includes convenient red/blue maps showing how badly they are losing most everywhere. Of course, we’re already well into 2011, but I’m not really going to blame those folks for phoning it in given the last time I looked at their Form 990s.
But I do I think we can do better. It’s like losing weight. Shed a few points here, a few points there. I look forward to turning Pennsylvania from blue to red over the next few years. Just looking over our score sheet, I think we could lose 3 points easily this session. That would at least move us south of Michigan on the Brady list. Pennsylvania has a grand total of 26 out of 100 points. Most of that we get from the ban on private transfer for handguns. The rest mostly comes from state dealer requirements.
What’s interesting is that Brady is hardly scoring carry laws anymore at all. In fact, if you take a look, they tend to rank current agenda items higher than issues they’ve already largely lost on.
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 won’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 don’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.