July 2014 – Page 5 – Shall Not Be Questioned

The Problem with General Gun Bans

Another store is under fire for their gun policy, but this time because they ban firearms and an employee assumed that IKEA meant it. So, when a guy showed up with a firearm strapped to his hip where everyone could see it, the customer was told to leave. That customer happens to be a police chief who was in uniform. Now, corporate is saying that their gun bans, even though they have no written exemption, were never meant to apply to any cop. The employee was simply enforcing their ban, and now he’s in trouble for it.

This is one reason why stores would be better not to post against lawful carry because they either have to make a list of exemptions that will eventually confuse their staff or they’ll have to ban police officers and others from their stores if they won’t create exemptions.

Chicago: Helping Us Keep Parity with Bloomberg

The City of Chicago has been ordered to sign over yet another near million dollar check over to the NRA for the case of Benson v. City of Chicago:

The Benson case was consolidated into Illinois Association of Firearm Retailers v. City of Chicago and that case challenged five aspects of Chicago’s law: (1) the ban on any form of carriage; (2) the ban on gun stores; (3) the ban on firing ranges; (4) the ban on self-defense in garages, porches, and yards; and (5) the ban on keeping more than one gun in an operable state.

Of course, fighting civil rights lawsuits isn’t cheap, so really this is just reimbursement for costs incurred fighting lawsuits that wouldn’t have any reason to exist if the City of Chicago wasn’t determined to evade the Second Amendment by hook or by crook. But it’s always good to hear the City of Chicago being a top NRA donor. Will we need to issue Rahm a gold jacket? He’s been donating at that level.

A Progressive Who Understands the Gun Issue

Sent to me by one of my liberal readers:

What matters isn’t what the public believes. What matters is the issues that the public is willing to get out and vote for. By and large, people don’t care badly enough about gun control to throw out legislators who don’t do what they want. But the small minority of gun nuts do care very badly–and they get out and vote in partisan primaries with that same passion.

This is the nuts and bolts of it, and one reason I’ve always strived not to just be another blog out there reaffirming confirmation biases. When most people don’t agree with you, the only way you can win is to ensure there remains few people passionate enough about gun control to actually vote on it.

We’ve made tremendous strides in this issue over the past few decades, to the point where the number of issues weÂ don’t enjoy at least a plurality of favorable public opinion are few. But one reason I’m always very wary of tactics designed to antagonize rather than persuade is because being antagonized is what causes people to get off their asses and act. There’s always a tendency among our people to believe that there’s more public support for our issue than there really is. The article is correct to note that this doesn’t matter as long as there’s still a big enthusiasm gap, but let’s not pretend the other side doesn’t have a large pool of potential supporters they can draw from if only there’s enough money to reach them.

That’s where Bloomberg comes in, and where he can do the most damage. They are starting small, not asking for much of a commitment. That’s why you see them circulating a lot of petitions and easy stuff which don’t take a lot of thought or effort. We’ve seen when it comes to higher levels of engagement, they take more than *ahem* a little encouragement.

My big concern is money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy elections. Bloomberg can easily outspend us. If we don’t make up for it with our own enthusiasm, we could end up in big trouble, and it could very likely come quickly and without much warning.

Standing Up to The Attacks

As cynical as I feel sometimes about the direction things are headed in with the Second Amendment issue, I do have to give a little credit where it is due to some of the other citizens stepping up to speak out. I’ve noticed several letters to the editor standing up for the NRA and gun rights recently, and even though I don’t agree with every conclusion in every letter, I’m happy to see people speaking out publicly. We need a few more people to stand up to the really absurd accusations about gun owners in the media because it helps inspire others to step up.

Happy Independence Day

I hope you all enjoy celebrating the birth of our nation by blowing up a small chunk of it. I’m going to spend most of today doing as little as possible. My major planned activity is snoozing in my chair and drinking iced tea.

My apologies for the light posting this week, but we’ve been busy tidying up for a house guest this weekend, and yesterday I had problems with the server the blog runs on. I was down a good chunk of Thursday because of a persistent crash involving the Ethernet chip on the board. I switched over to the other interface, in the hopes that it might only be specific to that one. We’ll see. I usually will get a text when the monitoring system detects the machine is down, but the mail relay was coincidentally out on that machine, which is the one thing that could go wrong where I wouldn’t know about it.

It may come time soon to replace the blog server. If I come to that point, I might have a fundraising drive. But I still think this current machine has some life left in it yet. We’ll see if switching to the other port fixes the problem.

Christie Vetos the Magazine Ban

From ANJRPC:

Today Governor Christie vetoed A2006 / S993, legislation (http://tinyurl.com/pxxpja3) that would have banned firearms magazines larger than 10 rounds and would have banned an entire class of popular .22 caliber semi-automatic rifles. The veto marks the end of the road for this legislation for the 2014-2015 session.
“After months of intense battle over this misguided legislation that won’t stop another crime or prevent another tragedy, we are grateful that Governor Christie has heard the voice of the outdoor community and ended the discussion,” said ANJRPC Executive Director Scott Bach. “The Governor clearly recognizes the difference between legislation that punishes violent criminals vs. legislation that targets the rights of law-abiding citizens.”

Target’s Statement on Open Carry

From Target:

The leadership team has been weighing a complex issue, and I want to be sure everyone understands our thoughts and ultimate decision.

As youâ€™ve likely seen in the media, there has been a debate about whether guests in communities that permit â€œopen carryâ€ should be allowed to bring firearms into Target stores. Our approach has always been to follow local laws, and of course, we will continue to do so. But starting today we will also respectfully request that guests not bring firearms to Target â€“ even in communities where it is permitted by law.

Weâ€™ve listened carefully to the nuances of this debate and respect the protected rights of everyone involved. In return, we are asking for help in fulfilling our goal to create an atmosphere that is safe and inviting for our guests and team members.

This is a complicated issue, but it boils down to a simple belief: Bringing firearms to Target creates an environment that is at odds with the family-friendly shopping and work experience we strive to create.

So, they’ve made clearly that they will continue to follow local laws on the issue, and they are specifically targeting “open carry” in their statement. This goes to that carrying guns just to get attention is the problem.

It’s funny to read some of the “mommy” comments on the post. Most are pretty much in the “we’re declaring victory even though the said they would keep their same policy” category, but one woman seems to realize that the stores aren’t going to actually enact a real gun ban:

Nice request but when they show up carrying today, in droves, to protest your decision, what are you going to do? Will you ask them nicely to leave (they won’t) or will you have them removed from your private property?

UPDATE: There’s this article that notes an important statement from Target’s spokeswoman:

Molly Snyder, a Target spokeswoman, said the retailer will not post signs at its stores asking people not to bring guns inside. “It is not a ban,” she said. “There is no prohibition.”

The KISS principle & Stupid Jerks

Caleb at Gun Nuts Media talks about a topic that I sort of hinted at in the comments on a post from yesterday: “There are a lot of jerks, idiots, and assholes in the world, I can guarantee that some of them legally own guns.”

Not every bad situation involving guns is invented by anti-gunners. The fact is that there are some people with very poor decision-making abilities who use cars in a dangerous manner, exercise their right to speak to say dumb things, and even brandish guns in a way that reflectors poorly on gun owners. As Caleb notes, we should be calling out these people for their poor decisions and bad actions and making clear that this kind of behavior isn’t acceptable in the modern gun community.

I realize that the easiest form of thinking is to just assume that everything is the fault of gun controllers, but just stop and consider it for a moment. Think of every hoop they would have to jump through to make whatever bad incident you’re thinking about happen. Chances are, you’ll realize that it’s really outlandish.

Energy spent coming up with conspiracy theories in every single situation is better spent on being a better representative of the pro-gun community and encouraging others to do the same.

Banning the Second Amendment

Waves were made in the gun community with a claim that a university is trying to stop a student from starting a Second Amendment-themed club, but further review shows that the student may not have expressed his intent or the situation clearly.

As someone who has been through the process before, it’s incredibly important to come up with a clear plan before approaching officials about something like this. According to the school, the student said he wanted a student group to organize a change in their gun policy. They didn’t tell him he couldn’t do that, but that a simple goal like that didn’t fit the requirements for an official school group that may be eligible for funding. That’s a perfectly legitimate response from the school, if that’s the case.

Now, if he wanted to start a Second Amendment group that does a wide variety of activities and may also have a campaign to change the school policy, that’s a very different request. Knowing the difference between those two requests will make a difference between denial and approval – unless there is real bias going on.

Clearly, there are cases of extreme anti-gun bias in academia, so it’s not out of the question that there is a problem. However, I find it telling that the latest reports say the student admitted he really didn’t know about the process of starting a club and he plans to work on the statement of intent for the group. That tells me that the school’s defense is likely accurate.