May 2014 – Page 7 – Shall Not Be Questioned

The Real Grassroots of Gun Culture

In light of yesterday’s post from Sebastian about concerns over messaging from NRA, and combined with the effort I’ve noted from Mother Jones to try and divide and conquer, the left-wing magazine is now trying to promote the notion that NRA doesn’t really have much in the way of grassroots and that everyone is just a paid shill of the evil gun lobby.

Their argument is that the NRA News commentators are paid, so therefore they aren’t really the grassroots of the gun culture. There’s just one big glaring problem with their story: the evidence doesn’t support it. Sure, the NRA News team and the commentators themselves have confirmed they are paid now, but Mother Jones ignores the fact that these people only got picked up because they were already actively part of the grassroots gun culture.

For example, they say this about Colion Noir:

Team member Noir recently confirmed in the Los Angeles Times that he was approached by the NRA and agreed to a deal, but also declined to discuss his compensation.

It makes it sound like NRA went out and to just find a black guy and offer him money to spit out pro-gun talking points. What Mother Jones leaves out is that Noir was brought on as staff in March 2013, but he already built a successful Twitter/Facebook/YouTube/Instagram following long before that in 2011 (or 2012, in the case of Instagram). He was approached to come on as staff because he was particularly successful as part of the grassroots gun culture.

For another commentator, Billy Johnson, he came onto NRA’s radar because he decided to make a video about real gun violence statistics at the end of 2012. That single video has more than 1.2 million views. Think about that. A video about statistics posted during the holidays has pulled in more than 1.2 million views. Billy Johnson told followers that NRA News didn’t contact him until the summer of that year. In other words, they found him only because he was already successful as a grassroots commentator speaking to Second Amendment issues.

The other commentators have similar stories, but slightly different backgrounds in the grassroots gun culture. None of those pesky little facts about the history of involvement that each of these men and women had in the grassroots gun culture is ever mentioned, and I suspect that is on purpose. It wouldn’t help their cause to remind politicians that while these people are currently paid staff of NRA News, their backgrounds in the issue before they were paid represent hundreds of thousands of people all involved in promoting the Second Amendment and the shooting sports.

Of course, I would also say that NRA needs to remember this lesson as well. Sure, Ackerman McQueen may have put some of the better grassroots spokesmen on the payroll to roll out a few decent videos, but those spokesmen aren’t NRA’s power. NRA’s power lies in the millions who vote their gun rights, organize their shooting leagues, and bring the message of the Second Amendment to their family and friends. One reason I’m concerned that some in Fairfax may be forgetting this is because I only heard one speech that actually acknowledged this real power of our movement.

Even the Grassroots Seminar this year wasn’t promoted very much. It was left out of the event app, is nearly impossible to find on the Annual Meeting website and schedule, and was smaller as a result of the missed opportunities for promotion. An annual election volunteer coordinator event was cut this year, though Sebastian & I still reached out to Grassroots staff to have a chat on strategies and organizing in the movement. Granted, one factor in participation is likely a feeling of a little burnout because the movement has had to be “on” constantly for at least two years now, but NRA just needs to remember that a snazzy video channel and fancy posters don’t replace the rest of the field of grassroots activists.

Protest / Counter-Protest

When all has been said and done, our side did pretty well for only having a few hours to put a counter-protest together. I counted 42 people in our group, and 25 people in theirs. Except they had their act together a bit more. They marched in from the center of Langhorne Borough, to Frank Farry’s office, while our group was already gathered outside the building. The CeaseFirePA folks immediately monopolized the area in front of traffic, which was smart on their part. Our group mistakenly went to join them, which only served to make their group look bigger than it really was, and given that many people on out side did not have signs, that wasn’t going to be a winning tactic.

Eventually our side kind of figured things out and spread out along the street to make our point to passing traffic. The good thing there is when people drive by and honk, you can’t be sure who they are supporting. This denied the other side the emotional self-satification of thinking everyone supports them.

Because there was only a few hours notice, few in our group had signs, whereas almost all the CeaseFire people had signs, and they also had a large banner. They had more time to plan. One thing it taught us to have signs on hand and ready to go at a moments notice. Folks honored the request not to open carryÂ long guns, and both our people and their people were sending people inside the office to make ourselves heard.

One thing I’d note is that a lot of people want to argue with the other side. I tend to think this is rather pointless. The folks that show up to these rallies are going to be true believers, and not amenable to having their minds changed. All it accomplishes is making their group look bigger. I’m a big fan of staying in two different areas. Our group was bigger, and that could have been very apparent to any person driving past, or to any reporters covering the events.

The purpose of counter-protest is a) denying your opponents the emotional satisfaction of believing they own the field, and b) making sure the media covers both sides of the issue, and c) demonstrating organizational effectiveness to the particular lawmaker targeted. I believe we accomplished a) and c) pretty well, and probably b) too, but we’ll have to see how the media spins it. If they end up misreporting the numbers, that’s because it was really hard to tell once this got going. I counted out our folks before they arrived, and counted their folks as they marched in.

As soon as they moved in, they occupied the prime real-estate.

They used bill numbers on a lot of their signs. I don’t think people tend to remember bill numbers.

Is NRA’s Messaging Getting too Doctrinaire Conservative?

I know I promised everyone some posts this weekend, but I had some beautiful-weather-induced writer’s block and just didn’t get it out. But now it’s been long enough since Annual Meeting that is now or never, and it’s time to address some remaining issues. I’ve been having a post running around in my head since I read this article by Charles C.W. Cooke in National Review talking about NRA possibly becoming a victim of its own success, but I haven’t been able to quite figure out how to pull all myÂ thoughts together. Â Cooke’s entire article is well worth your time, but allow me to quote the part that I wish to discuss in the remainder of this post:

The National Rifle Association is successful because it is popular, because its members are highly engaged, because it is defending a right that is enumerated in the nationâ€™s founding document and a tradition that is cherished by members of both major political parties, because its opponents routinely embarrass themselves with their hysteria and with their lack of rudimentary knowledge about the topic at hand, and, most of all, because it is a single-issue organization that maintains its focus. But this yearâ€™s conference was not particularly focused; indeed, at times it was almost indistinguishable from the Republican National Convention.

I’ve always given NRA a good bit of leeway when it comes to putting on Annual Meeting because they are constantly driven to bring more and more people out to the show in order to keep setting records, and a lot of people are drawn in by the speakers. Whatever the downsides to NRA’s strategy, it’s hard to argue that they are failing. Houston will be a tough number to top, but since I’ve been going to Annual Meeting, since about 2007 or so, the trend has been nothing but upwards. The first year I went, to St. Louis in 2007, the attendance number was a record, at 64,000 and change. If NRA drew that number today, all the media headlines would be how the organization is losing influence, and how it’s members are losing interest. So I understand the pressure to keep the message appealing to as large an audience as possible.

But there is taking it too far, and losing your focus. I get that NRA can’t really control what Sarah Palin is going to say when she gets up on stage, but can you tell me what it has to do with gun rights enough to retweet it from official NRA social media? I’m also concerned about Tam’s post, who notes:

Hey, you coming down to the show?” I asked the waiter at my local hipster in-town brewpub. I knew he liked guns; he’d just gotten his first AR-15 and often helped man a table at the big Indy 1500 fun shows.

“Nah,” he replied, “I’m not an NRA member. I’m pro gun, but I’m a liberal,” as though setting foot on the convention floor to look at Aimpoint scopes and the Magpul bus would be like signing on to support everything from the invasion of Iraq toÂ HJR-3.

But Tam isn’t the only one. There’s also Â this article in the TimesHerald-Record, that while a bit ignorant guns, and the gun issue, isn’t someone who I think is reflexively on the other side, because her son is a gun person:

And then stuff like last week’s big NRA annual meeting in Indianapolis and Sarah Palin’s speech about Mama Grizzlies and “clownish little kumbaya-humming, fairytale-inhaling liberals” and how we should baptize terrorists by water boarding and that gun-free zones in places like schools are “stupid on steroids.”

The crowd loved her. But I have to wonder how many people, and for how long, will continue to go for that sort of shtick. It always seems to me to be so angry, us-versus-them, and so suspicious of anything or anyone that doesn’t conform to a narrow definition of “American.”

If we’re going to have long term security for this issue, it needs to be bipartisan. I believe the Republican Party may enjoy some short-term success over the next several years, if only because of overreach by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. But over the long-term, if the Republicans do not adjust their own message to be more palatable to younger voters, demographics will turn to the Democratic Party into the dominant party. And then what? Any strategy for preserving gun rights has to recognize that there are a lot of gun people out there who are not doctrinaire conservatives, and even liberals. I’m always surprised by how many liberal gun owners read this site.

While I recognize that the gun issue can’t stand on its own, without being part of a broader coalition, I also recognize that if you lash yourself too strongly to one ship, you’re going to be SOL if it sinks. For starters, I think it’s time to recognize that Sarah Palin is washed up; she’s a has been. But that’s just for starters. There’s a lot of people very strongly associated with NRA who I think have diminishing utility as the face of the organization.

That said, there’s a lot NRA is doing right on this front, such as cultivating speakers and spokespeople for the organization that aren’t Wayne, and don’t fit most people’s stereotypes of NRA. See this video:

Not many stereotypes on parade there, and it’s a really well-done video. But just one problem; could someone explain to me what it has to do with the Second Amendment? This was NRA’s big video this year, and they were promoting the hell out of it. But I actually liked this one much better:

I fear NRA is lashing itself too strongly to a sinking ship (the GOP coalition as it is currently composed), and broadening its message too far beyond the Second Amendment. While this might help getting more doctrinaire conservatives on board, it’s not helping cultivate the next generation of NRA members, who are going to be far less conservative (in the sense we understand the term today) than those that came before them.

CeaseFirePA Digging in My Backyard

I know I have some local folks who are readers, so I just want them to be aware that the Bloomberg funded group,Â CeaseFirePA, is planning a rally outside the local district office of Frank Farry, one of our NRA endorsed State Reps in Bucks County. They in particular are incredulous that he is supporting eliminating PICS and relying on the federal NICS system.

If you are in the area, please see if you can stop by his district office today at 4PM. His office is atÂ 370 E Maple Ave, Langhorne PA. I appreciate anyone who can come and showÂ their support, especially on such short notice.

FOAC/CGOPA are asking people not to OC long guns, which I think is a wise decision. We need to show CeaseFirePA, and more importantly Rep. Farry, that they can’t outmuscle us.

NJ Smart Gun Law of Unintended Consequences

New Jersey lawmakers are offering to repeal their smart gun law if “the NRA agrees to stop standing in the way of smart gun technology.”Â John Richardson notes they misunderstand the nature of this movement, and I think he’s correct, but the fact is that opposition to this technology has only become fierce because lawmakers have chosen to mandate it. Lawmakers in New Jersey should repeal the law because it’s the right thing to do, not because we agree to any “deal.”

Now that we know lawmakers are eager to mandate the technology, they have forever soiled the idea. How do we know as soon as the technology becomes “available,” and the community doesn’t pound them, that New Jersey, California, or any of the other states with legislatures innately hostile to Second Amendment rights, won’t just re-manadate them with new legislation?

Forbes’s cyber-security writer ran a very good article over the weekend describing the inherent problems with Smart Gun technology. I am an electrical engineer by training, and I can confidently say that with current technology, it would be impossible to make a smart gun that would be even close to the reliability of a mechanical firearm. Armatix’s solution, or similar solution, is probably the most reliable, but it requires a watch, ring, or implant or some sort, and would also be very susceptible to jamming. There’s also the political problem, brought up in the Forbes article:

AsÂ I described in another previous article, smartguns may be susceptible to government tracking or jamming. How hard would it be for the government to require manufacturers to surreptitiously include in computer-enhanced weapons some circuitry that would allow law enforcement to track â€“ or even to disable â€“ the weapons? Before dismissing such a fear as silly paranoia, consider that the US government is alleged to have secretly installed malware onto thousands of networks and placed spy chips into computers, it has admitted to spying on its own citizens, is believed to have prohibited technology companies from divulging its spying on US citizens, and is known to have lost track of weapons whose locations it intended to monitor. Should private citizens really be confident that such a government will not want to keep tabs on their guns?

How long before Smart Gun technology is introduced, will it not only be mandated, but the next “common senseÂ gun safety law”Â is to allow a means for government or law enforcement to disable them at a whim? How long before the smart technology mandates that it broadcast its presence so police know when approaching someone whether they are armed? This is all just “common sense.”

Sorry, but the subject has been ruined because we know what the end game is. It would be smart of us to keep fighting smart gun technology, now that they’ve revealed they have a desire to mandate it. Regardless of what kind of deal New Jersey legislators think they can cut now, they’ve forever ruined whatever trustÂ might have existed within the firearm community. Smart guns are now viewed as a bad thing, and nothing will be able to undo the damage done by anti-gun activists and legislators who gave us a reason to kill this technology in its infancy.

Drake Denied

This morning, the Supreme Court denied cert in Drake. This is a little speculation on the case from SCOTUS Blog:

The denial of Drake was without explanation or noted dissents. That does not mean that no one voted for cert; probably that those who wanted to grant, if there were any, were unsure about prevailing on the merits. The list of denial of 2d Amendment outside-the-home cases is lengthening. It is unclear what kind of case on that subject will attract the Court’s attention.

ATF 41P on NFA Trusts Moved Beyond Election

Dave Hardy is reporting a decision is being pushed off until 2015. I tend to think nervous Democrats are, well, nervous about doing this so close to an election year. ATF will also no doubt want to be sure all its Is are dotted and Ts crossed, because they are nearly certain to face lawsuits over whatever is decided. I don’t think this represents a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the Administration for getting this rule in place. Getting paybacks against those who oppose him is important, after all. But it does represent the reality that they know they can’t just throw caution to the wind. Any other issue would have been steamrolled already.

Friday Mini-Links

This weekend there are a few posts I want to do about the Annual Meeting, so things won’t be so dead around here. Today is always difficult though, because it’s my office day, and when most of our meetings happen. But here are some mini links. The links are not small, but there’s not as many of them:

Looks like the Armatix Smart Gun almost got another vendor, but backed down after a backlash. It would mean the death of Second Amendment rights for everyone in New Jersey. The only problem I have with Smart Gun technology is that our opponents mean to mandate it, rather than letting the market decide.

The limited Constitutional Carry bill is dead in Florida. It’s hard to pass, especially in big states with politically diverse populations.

Polling shows Vermonters want stricter gun laws. Vermont has practically zero crime. This is a solution in search of a problem, but the default position of many people is that there has to be controls.

The ultimate M-11 conversion!

I thank the other side for this tool, which lets you know whether your 401K investments have made the wise decision to invest in gun companies. I want my investments making decisions based on their return, not based on PC garbage.

Some movement in Peruta.

The Second Amendment in South Africa.

Tom Ridge may have quit Bloomberg’s group, but he’s still no friend.

John Richardson paid a visit to the H-S Precision booth.

New Attempts to Divide & Conquer

It looks like Mother Jones is investing in a strategy of trying to convince hunters that NRA doesn’t represent them because of one bill that appears to have covered many national land access issues. And, since those access issues might possibly be used by energy companies and some guys who own energy companies in Texas happen to like guns and donate to NRA, CLEARLY the evidence is overwhelming that NRA hates hunters…or something. (Heavy sarcasm in that summary if you couldn’t tell.)

This is a pretty hard sell to make considering that 3/4 of NRA members report that they are hunters, according to NRA President Jim Porter’s report at the recent board meeting. In fact, the organization launched a Hunter Leadership Forum event at this year’s annual meeting that raised more than $2 million for hunting programs at NRA.

So, I would say that the evidence shows NRA is quite connected to the hunting community. Will there be times that legislation is more complex and touches on issues that non-hunting access? Yes. But that doesn’t mean that NRA is “turning…against hunters.” It is also just a bit of a stretch to argue that because NRA accepts some donations from Texas families who own guns and hunt that happen to be in the energy sector that they are now energy industry lobbyists because of one or two bills. This looks like an attempt to try and see if they can pull some of those hunting supporters away from the organization since hunters are clearly such a huge part of the NRA “family.”

Preemptive Surrender is Never a Good Strategy

I really wish Alan Gottlieb would stop engaging in preemptive surrender on the background check issue:

From Gottliebâ€™s perspective, the Manchin-Toomey Amendment â€” which contained several pro-gun measures, including an outright ban on a national gun registry and background check exemptions for friends, neighbors, family members â€” was certainly the lesser of two evils, i.e. a compromised bill sponsored by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA), both A-rated NRA members, versus one written solely by the Schumer, Feinstein and other staunch pro-gun control supporters.

No it was not. The problem with Manchin-Toomey was several fold. First, it wasn’t very clear when you would or would not be subject to the background check requirements. Second, none of the measures, including the ban on the national registry, were worth spit. Who’s going to enforce it? Is Eric Holder going to prosecute himself for violating the prohibition? Some of the things offered up to us, like the FOPA travel enhancement would have actually stripped the FOPA travel provision entirely. Manchin-Toomey was a farce of a deal, which is why it needed to be killed.

Every time I think it’s time to forgive SAF, because I really do believe they are doing good work for the issue in the Courts, Alan Gottlieb opens his mouth again about Manchin-Toomey and I get pissed off all over again. This kind of thing doesn’t help, and it’s going to give the other side cover to shove something down our throats. Why do we want to bring this issue up again anyway? We won, they lost. If the momentum suddenly shifts, then we can assess the situation at the time. After all, there looked to me like there was a “break glass” provision in all this mess that no one paid attention to. So I think some people, at least, were thinking ahead. By offering to preemptively concede ground, the next time we’re in a tight spot, they are going to want ground we’re not willing to concede. It only puts us in a worse negotiation position.