April 2012 – Page 5 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Zimmerman Bail Set at 150K

The judge granted bail. The prosecution pushed for 1,000,000 dollar bail, arguing that he showedÂ “a lack of adhering to authority,” and “Quite frankly, some people will want to get to him.” He is not to possess firearms, drink, or take controlled substances.

I’ll be interesting to see when Zimmerman’s attorney go for dismissal. As Popehat notes, the affidavit supporting the charges is complete garbage. ABC also has a photo of a bloodied Zimmerman. Tom Maguire also has some useful observations in that link as well.

Ted Nugent in the Washington Times

Probably about as reconciliatory as you’re going to get from Uncle Ted, which is to say it’s not. Like I said, anyone who thinks Ted Nugent was literally calling for beheadings is delusional, especially given the Braveheart reference before it.

Why Isn’t There a Movement to “De-radicalize” the NRA?

I get tired of hearing this tome over, and over:

There are signs, though, that the NRA is growing out of touch with modern Americans and even with its own membersâ€”who, according to surveys, now tend to support restrictions such as mandatory background checks on buyers of weapons at gun shows. The future does not look bright, either. Despite attempts to attract women, most convention-goers in St Louis were white men over the age of 40â€”a segment of the population on the decline. The classified sections in NRA magazines such asÂ American RiflemanÂ feature, besides all the weaponry, advertisements for gardening equipment and Viagra.

This article isn’t really journalism, so much as parroting anti-gun propaganda. That’s par for the course for media coverage of our issue, but here’s one thing I’ve always wondered about the claim that appears above. NRA is a membership driven organization, meaning the members get to vote for the people who set overall direction of the association. Anyone who’s been around for a while knows of the days of the Knox insurrection against NRA and its leadership. The Knoxers were a faction of NRA that wanted NRA to take a more hard-line stance, and adopt a take-no-prisoners approach to lobbying, and they managed to raise a lot of hell and cause problems for the current leadership.

If NRA members are in such disagreement with their leadership, how come there hasn’t been a movement of moderate NRA members to “de-radicalize” the organization. How come you don’t see web sites dedicated to firing Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox because he’s too hard line? Where are the blogs and forum members calling on NRA to moderate its stance? In a membership driven organization, this is extremely surprising. At Annual Meeting, any NRA member can propose resolutions, and some of them are pretty far out there. So why in my five years of attending Annual Meetings all around the country has not a single member proposed the idea that maybe NRA ought to mellow out a bit?

Anti-gunners needs to answer that if they want to be taken seriously that NRA is out of touch with its members, and if the media were actually doing its job, they’d be asking the same question.

Congratulations to Clayton

He’s finding more and more decision his works have been cited in.

Joe Grace Needs a Job

He’s been showing up to protests, and doing a lot of independent work in the gun ~~rights~~ violence prevention movement. He must be looking to get hired by someone. But by who? CSGV is going to be lucky to meet payroll for the employees they already have. Brady is similarly headed into the abyss, and besides, they just hired Dan Gross who will turn things around by turning on the crazy. CeaseFirePA? That’s Max’s show now. That only leaves Bloomberg, and what does Joe Grace have to offer to Bloomberg?

Grace was Communications Director for the City of Philadelphia under Mayor Street, and then went to work for CeaseFire Pennsylvania. After that he unsuccessfully ran for Philadelphia City Council. If anyone knows of a good senior political communications job in Dem-Progressive politics, let us know in the comments. It’s very important for us to help out-of-work anti-gunners Â (or even in-work anti-gunners, who are just looking for a career change)Â find work in other fields. We really do care!

Celebrating the “Shot Heard Round the World”

Today is April 19th, the day the American Revolution began:

They don’t do stuff like this for kids anymore. Maybe that’s why you have problems like this.

Obama’s Statement on the Nuge

In what has been characterized as pulling the rug out from Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, the Obama Administration has the following to say about Ted Nugent’s remarks:

“A lot of this other stuff is noise,” his spokesman said today. “[Obama] has made the point that we can’t, as a general rule, police the statements of every supporter.”

I think Obama recognizes it’s not smart politics to go after Ted Nugent. For one, if he did so, he’d elevate Nugent’s status in the debate. He’d turn him into someone the President of the United States feels the need to respond to. Two, he’d risk alienating the people that Nugent speaks to. Three, he’d open himself up to be held accountable for every whacky and nutty thing (and there will be those in spades, on both sides) every minor supporter utters.

I don’t really characterize Obama’s statement as pulling the rug out from Wasserman-Schultz. Smart politics is to let your lower level functionaries make hay out of something like Nugent. The President has to be protected, and that means he needs to maintain the appearance of being involved in all this petty nonsense, while at the same time turning lower level functionaries loose to gin this stuff up in the media.

Feinstein Places Hold on National Reciprocity

This was entirely expected, for one of the anti-gun Senators to put a hold on the reciprocity bills. It was always going to take 60 votes to get this passed, as it did last time it was up. Do we have sixty votes? Hard to say. Last time it failed by two, if I recall, but Schumer had some more votes in his pocket if he had needed them. It should be noted that this hold is on both S.2188, which is the bipartisan bill, and S.2213, which is only being sponsored by Republicans. I still stand by my prediction that without both parties coming together around one bill, that this won’t happen.

Worth noting that Senator Pat Toomey has signed on as a co-sponsor to S.2213, but that Senator Bob Casey Jr. has not signed on to either, despite claims of being pro-gun. Also worth noting that Senator Casey allegedly had a deal cut with Schumer to vote no on the bill if needed.

Jackson-Lee: Burning the 4th Amendment

Sheila Jackson Lee needs a constitutional refresher:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Here’s an a program she’s currently implementing:

Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee unveiled the program, labeled Bus Safe, during a press conference on Friday. According to a Metropolitan Transit Authority of HoustonÂ (METRO) press release, agencies involved in the scheme will, â€œride buses, perform random bag checks, and conduct K-9 sweeps, as well as place uniformed and plainclothes officers at Transit Centers and rail platforms to detect, prevent and address latent criminal activity or behavior.â€

The proper response to this ought to be outright defiance. The police or TSA have absolutely no right to randomly search anything of yours. Remember, these people don’t just believe the 2nd Amendment is dead letter. They would willingly destroy every freedom in America if given half the chance.

h/t to Thirdpower

Watching the Left Come Unraveled over Ted Nugent

According to many on the left, Ted Nugent is crazy and paranoid for suggesting he’s going to be in jail if Obama wins re-election, while at the same time Obama’s supporters are yammering that he should be in jail. As I’ve mentioned, I’m not the world’s biggest fan of Nugent’s over-the-top rhetoric, but anyone who thinks he was literally calling for beheadings in November, or was making a threat against the President, is delusional. For context, here is Nugent’s full speech: