2012 – Page 166 – Shall Not Be Questioned

The Ridiculousness of it All

Well, it would seem some folks have touched a nerve with CSGV, that now they’ve taken to outing and libeling people on their blog. By now we’ve gotten used to it, of course if they had paid attention carefully they would realize those words are not mine (Sebastian) but those of my co-blogger Bitter.

Let me be clear here, what Congresswoman Giffords attended in Tucson was a memorial gesture in honor of the victims of that mass shooting.

Suzi Hileman, who took her young friend and neighbor, 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green, to meet Giffords that day, took the stage at the vigil and hugged Giffords, walking to the candle area, lighting one of 19 candles for all those killed and wounded, and mouthing “thank you” to the crowd.

I don’t bemoan anyone there doing whatever makes them assuage the loss, and to help heal their community. But what the anti-gun groups like CSGV and Brady are doing is not that. What they are doing is a publicity stunt. In fact, I’ve wondered if their candle event was intended to draw media attention to themselves, in the hopes that reporters would believe that perhaps their candle lighting event was somehow related to the true memorial service in Tucson. We don’t mock anyone’s suffering. We do mock a group of busybodies trying to draw attention to themselves by taking away from the true event in Tucson, in an attempt to get media attention to their cause of taking other people’s freedoms away.

UPDATE: It would seem CSGV has corrected their oversight, and added a few more items for which I don’t apologize. Once your grief crosses over into trying to remove my freedoms and shred part of the Bill of Rights you can no longer claim the right to be left alone.

The New CeaseFirePA Motto: Rules Don’t Apply to Us!

I presume that the new mission of CeaseFirePA will emphasize that laws must be applied differently depending on your status as a favored class member. Why is it safe to assume that? Well, the background of the organization’s new board president gives us one clue:

He also worked with the group while serving as Chief Counsel to Pennsylvania state Senator LeAnna Washington (D., 4th).

Followers on Twitter might recall that Sebastian and I were passed by his boss on the Pennsylvania Turnpike this year as she drove her state car through lanes and around other vehicles going in excess of 85 mph. (During an open spot in traffic, I tried to keep up to her to verify her license plate, but gave up and slowed down to normal speeds when I hit 85 and wasn’t close to keeping up with her. It’s not an exaggeration, and we did verify it was her driving when she suddenly slowed to pull into the King of Prussia service plaza.) So, given that he works for a woman who considers laws to be for the little people, I’m so curious to see if this philosophy will become the new standard for the anti-gun organization.

As a bit of side humor to his elevation, he sees success on the horizon for the anti-gun agenda. His evidence is rather amusing.

He pointed specifically to the state Supreme Court’s decision that it would not hear the NRA’s challenge to a Pittsburgh ordinance that requires gun owners to report lost or stolen firearms to police within 24 hours of discovery. The court ruled that the organization does not have legal standing to dispute the ordinance.

Success, by his definition, is the fact that officials refuse to use the ordinance they are pushing in municipalities; the reason NRA has no standing is because the illegal local laws aren’t being used at all.

I’m happy to help him keep defining success down in order to claim victory. Perhaps their 2012 annual report could say that there was a 100% rate of refusal to issue licenses to carry to those Pennsylvanians who never bothered to apply. Maybe they will report NRA member activity has greatly decreased in the state over his predecessor’s tenure. (Without a near-record NRA convention in the state, that would be technically be true.)

Second Amendment Legacies

The Civil Rights Defense Fund posted a story on their Facebook page about the Next Generation RKBA Scholars Seminar, and the final sentence caught my attention.

The weekend event was one of the final things that the late Congressmen Harold Volkmer voted for as a Trustee of the NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund.

I pulled up our post on his passing last year, and I smiled when I saw a quote that his final days were spent reviewing a case for the CRDF.

I hate that we’re losing some of the leaders who have made such incredible contributions to the issue so that I grew up in a culture where I never realized gun rights were even seriously debated (it was rural Oklahoma), but I love that they have such dedication to ensure the Second Amendment scholarship keeps moving forward.

Tough Losses for NJ Gun Rights Supporters

There are times that gun rights supporters are prepared for the possibility of setbacks in a legislature, and that’s usually on Election Day. Unfortunately, New Jersey’s community has been hit twice since Election Day 2011 with losses that weren’t expected. Last night, Assembly Republican leader Alex DeCroce collapsed and passed away at the State House. The other loss was in November with the passing of Peter Biondi. Certainly, our thoughts are with the families of these two.

NRA PVF had both rated as A candidates in the last election, so this means that local Jersey gun owners will need to do what they can in any special elections to help us keep those seats in the hands of pro-gun folks.

On another note, it’s pretty appalling that the AP considers it noteworthy that Gov. Christie came back to the State House about an hour after the Assemblyman passed last night in loafers with no socks. They describe him as so upset that he broke down with other GOP leaders, having just lost a friend and mentor. Yet, they consider it important to note his lack of socks. Of all of the details to capture in the moment, this is what the Associated Press considers important.

RCMP Confiscating What They Can

Apparently while the Canadian Long Gun Registry is still operating, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are doing what they can to make use of it. Not to battle crime, mind you, but to order Canadians to turn in scary looking guns. Chief on their list is ridding Canada of a .22LR guns that happen to look like military guns. Apparently manufactured by Armi Jager of Italy.

Repealing Virginia’s Gun Rationing

Dave Adams of the Virginia Shooting Sports Foundation has an article in the Roanoke Times calling for the repeal of one-gun-a-month, and suggesting it was his top legislative priority for the year. Excellent.

I’m Beat

I am just plum out of energy from the weekend. This was one of those events, much like NRA Annual Meeting, where you’d rather stay up and talk to people than go to bed. An early start to the events meant only a few hours of sleep a night. I had to start a new work engagement today, so that added up to not much energy for posting, despite having a lot to say. Let me relay some further impressions.

I hadn’t seen Clayton Cramer in person since Heller. To say he’s a font of knowledge about American History is a serious understatement. The depth of research he’s done on behalf of the issue is remarkable, and he can recall obscure facts on command at a detail rarely achieved.

The other fun fact from the weekend is that Professor Nick Johnson, who is co-author on the new Second Amendment law textbook–the first of its kind–along with Professors Michael O’Shea, Dave Kopel, and George Moscary, is a member of the local shooting club I am an officer for, and lives relatively close to me in Bucks County. Apparently he’s had Professor Moscary as a guest at the club, who commented to me how nice the facilities are.

It’s a small world, folks. My club has its roots in the working class neighborhoods of Levittown, and yet you never know when you might find yourself shooting next to a distinguished professor of law. I’ll be speaking more about Professor Johnson’s law review article later, which attacks some common misconceptions about the civil rights movement’s view of non-violence, which is a challenge to the now prevailing view. It’s really quite fascinating.

Telling Our Own Stories

I attended the NRA Board of Directors meeting this weekend, and anyone interested in the general commentary can check my Twitter timeline. But there was at least one topic I thought worthy of a longer post.

Susan Howard of the Public Affairs Committee made an important point to the rest of the NRA Board of Directors when she gave her committee report on Saturday. She felt it was time for the board to tell their own stories about what they do and how they are involved with the movement to protect our rights. Susan reported that she talked to both Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox about some kind of page or site to really meet your NRA board of directors and get the information on what moves them to serve and stand up for the Second Amendment.

Personally, I say that it’s about damn time. Susan argued it was time to tell the stories that show we’re really the good guys. I think this is a good lesson we can apply more in the broader movement, too.

The anti-gun groups will try to say that if you care about the safety of your family, you’re just paranoid. We need to make sure that we counter with the fact we care about the safety of our families because we love them, and we will do what we must to protect their lives. The best way to counter it isn’t to argue with those groups. It’s to tell others who are undecided on the issue why we’re good folks who can be trusted to safely exercise our rights.

When it comes to the shooting sports, we can apply the same ideas. Anti-gunners will try to say shooters are just compensating for something else, but we know that recreational shooting is fun. The best way to counter it is to tell non-shooters why about what that great time at the range, along with an offer to get them out there to see for themselves. We’re the fun folks, and that’s our story to tell.

As much as we’ve mocked Meet the NRA before, this kind of project should really be CSGV’s worst nightmare. When our people start showing that they are normal folks who simply believe in the Constitution, want to defend their loved ones, and know how to safely have a great time at the range, it will be a perfect illustration to how out-of-touch the extremist anti-gun groups really are with average Americans.

2A Scholars: The Next Generation

Anyone who’s aware of the history of the black civil rights movement knows that it was a multi-generational struggle. There’s little reason to believe that the movement to protect the civil right of keeping and bearing arms is going to be any different. The greats of our movement, who laid the scholarly foundations that made the successes in Heller and McDonald possible, are unfortunately getting old. It is necessary to incubate and foster a new generation of legal minds to continue the scholarship necessary to take this struggle well into the 21st century. It is with this in mind that I spent the weekend as a guest to NRA’s Civil Rights Defense Fund.

The CRDF hosted a seminar for up-and coming legal scholars, hosted by the very people who put Second Amendment legal scholarship on the map, and made the “standard model” the mainstream viewpoint. It featured lectures from Don Kates, Dave Hardy, Joyce Malcolm, Bob Cottrol, Dave Kopel, Nick Johnson, Steve Halbrook, and several others folks who I will feature as I speak more about the weekend in upcoming posts. I should note that if the caliber of people I met this weekend is any indication, the Second Amendment will be in good hands. As someone with no formal legal training, I certainly felt out of my league. The seminar attendees came from all four corners of North America. From Maine to Florida, over to California, up to Idaho and onward to Alberta. Yes, we even had a Canadian attendee.

I’ll have more to relay as the week progresses, but while the Brady Campaign were busy lighting candles to mourn the passing of their relevance, we were busy trying to secure the future of Second Amendment scholarship. This was a first of its kind event, but if this weekend is any indication, I’m very optimistic for future successes.

Smarter Politicking

I see that Drudge is headlining with Rick Perry shooting news:

Ready, aim fire. Thatâ€™s apparently Texas Gov. Rick Perryâ€™s idea of relaxation before returning to the campaign trail this weekend.

Ahead of Saturday nightâ€™s ABC News-Yahoo-WMUR debate in New Hampshire Perry took a few moments to himself at an Austin-area shooting range.

I would suggest that smarter politicking would be to hit up a range in New Hampshire or South Carolina. Just sayin’. Maybe some Rick Perry supporters in those states would like to offer his campaign some local range recommendations. I wonder if the Brady Campaign will issue an update to their “We hate Rick” report with this news.