2013 – Page 132 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Eastern Sports & Outdoor Show Bans PA Sportsmen’s Club Fundraiser

The ban on modern semi-automatic rifles at the Eastern Sports & Outdoors Show doesn’t just apply to the display and sale of the actual firearms and related accessories. According to the early report from Firearms Industry Consulting Group, the new rule also says that vendors may not feature “brochures or documentation that mention or picture any ‘black rifle’ or high capacity magazine.”

This means that the Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs cannot sell tickets to their raffle for a Bushmaster XM-15E2S A3. They have posted the order form online for anyone who wants to mail in a form with payment. So, if you’re interested in a chance of winning a rifle for $10 (or 6 chances for $50) with a only 500 tickets sold, take a look.

UPDATE: PFSC provides confirmation that even their raffle ticket is banned at the ESOS under the current rules:

PFSC had planned to sell raffle tickets for a chance to win the hottest-selling firearm on the market today. It comes fully-accessorized! Unfortunately, we wouldnâ€™t be able to mention, display or provide a picture of it at the show.

They also include in the announcement that they will no longer have an active presence at the show because of the ban on modern semi-automatic rifles.

From the Vice President

From an e-mail sent out to the White House e-mail list, from the Vice President, which begins with the sentence:

Taking the oath of office is a serious piece of business.

Put another way, it’s a big ‘effin deal, right Joe? You mean the oath of office which says:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Which refers to the Constitution which says:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

If it’s “a serious piece of business,” why don’t you start the first term actually following your oath, Mr. President and Mr. Vice President?

Photo of the Day

A former slave from Tennessee, Mary Fields, holding the assault weapon of her age. The Winchester 1876 carried fifteen rounds, which is more than double the amount deemed necessary for self-defense by Governor Andrew Cuomo Â and the New York State Legislature.

Today is Martin Luther King day. King is, by some ways of looking at it, the man who finally won the Civil War. In the Reconstruction and Jim Crow era, often times Blacks had to protect their rights as Americans with Winchesters like the one Mary Fields is seen here with. Their tormenters just as often government as private terror groups. Often they were the same thing. Indeed, as many have documented, the history of gun control is intertwined with the subjugation of African-Americans as second class citizens. They went hand in hand.

Hat Tip to Cemetery, who has the full sized photo.

Quote of the Day: Shrill Gun Control Advocates Edition

Our favorite Brady Board member writes:

The emotion about the Sandy Hook school shooting is exactly what is driving the movement to change our current gun laws so that more parents won’t send their children to school in the morning and get a call that their child is one that didn’t make it home that afternoon. That’s emotion. The emotion felt by those families was felt by the entire country. If the protesters who showed up on Saturday don’t or can’t feel that emotion, what is wrong with them? Their emotion is all about fear and paranoia that is fueled by the NRA lobbyists.

This represents something the gun control faithful won’t accept and truly don’t understand, it represents why their can’t really be any “national conversation.” We all want to make sure our children are well protected. We all felt awful in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre. To think that every protester that showed up as some kind of uncaring monster is exactly the kind of attitude that makes having a conversation impossible. We are not monsters. We care just the same for our families as you care for yours, we just have vastly different philosophies on how they are best to be protected. That’s a wide gulf, to be sure, but it’s not one so wide that people on the other side can smugly declare that they are the only ones who care about children.

States and Background Checks

I’ve had this article from National Review in my tabs for a while, but I wanted to comment on something:

So watch out. If the Obama administration proposes money for states to conduct background checks, according to federal instructions, or â€œpermissionâ€ for states to do background checks, according to federal instructions, the governments of the several states should answer with one voice: Absolutely not. Washington should pay for, implement, and be accountable for its own policies

In most cases, states don’t conduct background checks. That is done by the FBI on the federal dime. There are states that do conduct their own background checks and act as a point-of-contact with the federal system. There is little doubt the federal government will make monies available to the states to report mental health records to the federal system. Indeed, such monies are already available. I don’t think that’s really a violation of the principle of dual sovereignty, to merely hold federal money out to entice a state to do something. In Printz v. United States the Court ruled that the federal government may not commandeer state agencies or officers, and in NFIB v. Sebelius, the Court ruled the federal government may also not threaten to cut certain funds in order to coerce states. But it can hold out money as an enticement to do the federal government’s bidding.

Maryland Shall Issue Needs Help

Maryland is next:

The Maryland Legislature is being asked to consider a broad range of gun control proposals. The Governor claims he will have an easy road to banning anything he determines to be an “Assault Weapon” and to force fingerprinting and registration of all buyers in the state. He will ban magazines holding more than ten rounds and force expensive training requirements on those who would purchase and own firearms.

The goal in Maryland is simple: make the ownership and use of firearms so expensive and so onerous that people will not bother to exercise their right. Gun Controllerâ€™s in this state look to take a big bite today, and then continue to chip away at our rights every chance they get. Their goal is the eventual destruction of the right through implementation of impractical laws, expensive training and onerous regulation. O’Malley wants to eventually force you to turn in your guns, just like they will in New York.

You can follow Maryland Shall Issue here. Let’s hold them at New York.

Tab Clearing: Cause It’s Monday Edition

News is building up, once again:

A survivor of Tiananmen squareÂ on gun rights.

A way to foil ground penetrating radar? Could be handy if you live in New York.

A tale of two cities. Richard Fernandez’s guest poster sees the gun control fight as boiling down, essentially, to a battle between a Rousseauian “general will” vision for America, and the civic minded republican individualism of our founders so admired and observed by Alexis de Tocqueville. Very much worth your time.

I saw some people here suggesting that NRA use Jessie Duff as a spokesperson for the cause. Well, here you go.

Demographic change undermining the gun control movement. See also this.

Lighting money on fire. This is a tax credit idea I could get behind. If prices drop back down, it’ll help me trade up. Don’t think of it as a voluntary buyback so much as a tax credit for gun collectors.

How many kids had a choice in writing letter asking Obama to ban guns?

The problem with public research on gun violence that Obama wants us to pay for.

Gun sales rise in Pennsylvania.

How to crush dumb gun control arguments.

Obama’s tired gun control schemes won’t make children, or the rest of us, any safer. By Chris and Jeff Knox.

Chris Christie sets up a “task force” and suggests one of NRA’s ads is reprehensible. Now sure how he thinks he’s going to win a Republican primary at this rate. There’s also this.

Bloomberg Expose About the Brady Campaign

To me, this is more proof our real enemy is Bloomberg and Obama, and whatever Brady and CSGV do is just a side show:

â€œThe thing that really addresses gun violence is the thing that Brady was set up to do, and that is federal legislation,â€ said Michael Wolkowitz, a New York filmmaker who was on Bradyâ€™s board of directors for 10 years until he left last July. â€œBradyâ€™s people knew policy like no one else.â€

Yet so many years of congressional inaction led to a decline in the groupâ€™s ability to raise money, Wolkowitz said, which is why the board wanted a new, less policy-focused mission. â€œItâ€™s borderline Kafka,â€ he said.

And now you realize what I mean when I said that offering victory, any victory, to our opponents screws us politically. It is part of why we can’t have any rational conversation on this issue, because even to give a little would enable our opponents to regroup, come back, and take more, and there can be no doubt what many want, at this point, because it’s confiscation. There is no possibility that anyone can credibly argue now that this is not the case.

Read the whole article, it goes into more detail about the Brady decline:

Bradyâ€™s 2011 tax documents show it raised $5.8 million, about half its haul a decade earlier. The staff on I Street had dwindled to 30 — though Wolkowitz estimates the roster is now in the teens. Debra DeShong Reed, a spokeswoman for Brady, declined to say how many people work there.

Of course, that also cuts both ways. Gun owners have been in a long slumber that Obama is waking our people out of, though NRA has always had a broader based of members from which to raise funds than the Brady folks could ever dream of.

It’s All About Bill

Bill Clinton warns Democrats not to lightly dismiss gun owners and the people who represent them. I think it is sage advice, but for Clinton it is also self-serving. I imagine Bill and Hillary would still like to be the patriarchs of the Democratic Party, and Obama is a threat to that. If Obama gets his ass handed to him, he can smugly say “I told you.” Of course, he still has choice words for NRA:

Clinton also recalled threatening to veto a bill as Arkansas governor that would have prevented the city of Little Rock from instituting an assault weapons ban.

Clinton said that an National Rifle Association lobbyist threatened him over his veto in the state house, saying that the group would cause problems for his upcoming presidential campaign in rural states like Texas.

â€œRight there in the lobby,â€ Clinton said. â€œThey thought they could talk to governors that way.”

â€œI knew I was getting older when I didnâ€™t hit him,â€ Clinton said. Clinton recalls telling the NRA lobbyist, â€œIf thatâ€™s the way you feel, you get your gun, Iâ€™ll get my gun and Iâ€™ll see you in Texas.â€

Why are anti-gun people so violent?Â And why can’t we talk to governors that way? A governor is not a king. He serves the people.

The Free Publicity of a Boycott

They say that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Unfortunately for the Eastern Sports & Outdoor Show, I don’t think that’s the case for the news generated by their ban on modern rifles. All of the regional headlines about the show just a couple of weeks out are now about the volume of exhibitors who are pulling out of the show and leaving empty booth space behind. That is decidedly bad when it comes to convincing consumers that they should hand over $14 a day to browse empty tables.

After vendors pull out, gun owners question attending the outdoor show – ABC 27
Cabela’s pulls out of Harrisburg outdoors show over gun flap – The Patriot-News, The Mercury, The Tribune-Democrat, The Reporter, Public Opinion, Morning Call
Third Lancaster County business withdraws from Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show over gun flap – Intelligencer Journal
Celebrities join boycott of outdoor show – Intelligencer Journal, York Daily-Record
Cabela’s drops out of Harrisburg gun show, cites assault weapons ban – York Daily Record
Lancaster County exhibitor pulls out Harrisburg gun show, cites assault weapons ban – York Daily Record
Another Lancaster County exhibitor backs out of popular outdoor show over assault-rifle ban – Intelligencer Journal, York Daily Record
Assault weapons ban at Harrisburg expo irks enthusiasts – Pocono Record
Expo organizerâ€™s ban on assault weapons irks some – Daily Local News
Cabela’s pulls sponsorship from Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show – CBS 21
Assault weapons sale ban at large PA gun show draws fire – Philadelphia Inquirer
Cabela’s becomes latest vendor to bow out of outdoor show – ABC 27
Lengthy list of exhibitors boycotting Eastern Sports and Outdoors Show in Harrisburg, Pa. – The Post-Standard
Boycott over gun sale ban grows against Eastern Sports & Outdoor Show – The Patriot-News
Trent Cole jilts Pa. expo over ‘sporting rifle’ ban – Philadelphia Inquirer
Vendors pull out of show when assault weapons, high-capacity ammunition banned – Herald-Mail
Celebrity hunters pulling out of Harrisburg gun show – Pocono Record
Number of exhibitors withdrawing from Outdoor Show continues to climb – CBS 21
Sportsman Show Boycott – WNEP

Those are just the headlines on the stories about vendors pulling out or sportsmen who refuse to attend. That doesn’t include the initial reporting on the ban. Give it more time, and I suspect that we’ll not only see more vendors withdrawing from the show, but also more stories that effectively squash any energy and excitement that the ESOS might have drummed up with area consumers.

Of course, boycotts are good for some businesses, too. I’ve been following the boycott reports very closely, and it’s really amazing how many businesses are climbing aboard the boycott and claiming they are “pulling out” of the show – except they never had exhibition space to begin with. It’s awfully easy to say you’ll no longer attend an event you weren’t actually planning to attend. A few others have made their proud stand, but they just happen to own businesses and only planned to attend as consumers, not exhibitors. But, hey, they are being public with their support for our rights, so I won’t give them too hard of a time.

And to keep up the energy of supporting the Second Amendment, one retailer that withdrew is now holding a drawing largely for those who support other vendors that withdrew from the ESOS over their ban on modern rifles & accessories.

For what it’s worth, everyone on the list I’ve made up has been independently confirmed that they were on the list of vendors. That doesn’t mean that the list is perfect, but it’s reasonably verified.