The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
I have a few videos building up in the tabs, so I thought I’d do a video day. The first video for today, accompanied by an article, is Dana Loesch’s appearance on “The View”
I thought she handled it well. After the big stink the Demanding Moms, all she had to do was avoid breathing fire.
Okay, so maybe the NRA hasn’t actually taking over Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, but they did take over the sportsman’s show in Harrisburg after the last producers banned semi-automatic rifles.
This article features reporters who talked to attendees, and the response to NRA’s involvement appears to be overwhelmingly positive. One man said, “I’m happy the NRA took over,” even though one of the top things he was looking for at the shows included ATV displays. Another attendee told reporters that since NRA took over the show, it appears more organized and functional for consumers to get around the facility.
Looking at their photos, several of the aisles look nearly as packed as the busiest weekend days of the NRA annual meetings. That’s impressive. I hope that the rough winter weather doesn’t impact attendance too much. Hopefully, word will continue to get out that it’s a great event under new management and numbers will continue to climb.
The wages of the SAFE Act. Now they are the largest NRA state affiliate organization, having surpassed Texas:
Today, the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association (NYSRPA) is proud to announce that its membership has nearly doubled since the passage of the NY SAFE Act. NYSRPA President Tom King said, “Our membership has increased from (22,000?) to 41,000+ individual members in the space of one year. This is an extraordinary jump, and when you factor in the clubs and other organizations that are also members, we are a force to be reckoned with.†King noted that NYSRPA, the nation’s oldest National Rifle Association (NRA) affiliate, is now the largest, surpassing the Texas affiliate. King, an NRA board member, said he looks forward to drawing attention to this when he meets with his Texas Colleagues at the next NRA board meeting.
King cites the passage of the NY SAFE Act as the primary reason for the exponential increase in membership. “The NY SAFE Act is one of the most egregious assaults ever perpetrated on the Constitutional Rights of New Yorkers and people are fed up. I would point out that the governor recently said that advocates for the Second Amendment, traditional marriage, and the right to life, have forfeited their right to residency in this state. This is simply outrageous, and while we are strictly a Second Amendment advocacy organization, I can appreciate other organization’s consternation at such hubris.â€
The NYSRPA is currently in the process of litigating against the NY SAFE Act. “We had a recent decision in the Western NY federal judicial district that bodes well for our cause,†King. “The court ruled that the seven round limit on magazine capacity violated the Second Amendment and this decision has left the door open for a favorable ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court. Said King, “NYSRPA has already spent over $450,000 in legal fees and is prepared to bear whatever cost is required to defeat the NY SAFE Act. To quote the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ‘we shall overcome’.â€
Let us hope that their lawsuits find some success. I’ll be writing more about some activity in regards to lawsuits later, when I have a chance to review some opinions.
Apparently he stands accused of kleptoing himself about $267 bucks worth of shooting supplies from Caleba’s. But get this:
“Carvounis said he was on the governor’s security detail,†Tilden Township Police Chief William J. McEllroy told New Jersey Watchdog. “He said he makes $140,000 a year, and he’s afraid of losing his job.â€
140 large a year? I’m in the wrong line of work! I’d say he likely has a compulsion he could use some help with. Apparently he tried to get some “professional courtesy†out of the local constabulary, but to their credit they didn’t take him up on it. I’d be OK with ARDing him if he gets some help with his problem, though.
I’ll be honest, I’d personally be fine compromise in theory, but I suspect it’s bad politics for the GOP:
“Illegal immigrants, assuming they have lived here for a decent period of time and have not committed a felony, can have amnesty, but they can NEVER be allowed to vote. They can do anything else that is legal, but if they want to vote — or run for office or practice law in our country, as just happened in California — they must return home and go through the normal immigrant application process, however long that may take until they have citizenship.â€
I’ve posted on this before. Most of the arguments against this idea were the slippery slope, namely if we give them a limited amnesty now, they’ll just vote in a full one next chance they get. I believe in slippery slopes, and agree it’s no fallacy. Gun control is absolutely a slippery slope. Here’s what I look at:
So while I think the deal, in theory at least, would be acceptable to me, I think it would only contribute to the further destruction of the GOP at the cost of the Democrats winning several more election cycles. I’m not convinced anyway, that amnesty is the key to winning the latino vote. I think Republicans are pushing for limited amnesty largely because business interests want it, and because they have K street consulting firms whispering in their ear that this will allow them to win the latino vote.
There’s just something about attractive women who favor gun rights that gets our opponents in a hand-wringing tizzy. From the moment it was announced that Dana Loesch was going to be on The View, the madness began. Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence Ownership libel Dana Loesch, by suggesting she’s a spokeswoman for Magpul, when she is not. They had better be careful. I know they are used to repeatedly spewing untruths without getting called on it, but eventually they’re going to libel someone who isn’t afraid to file suit and will revel in the media circling the wagons to defend one of their own.
Shannon has been going nuts trying to prevent The View from hosting Dana, and I can’t really blame her. Their issue lives and dies by being able to maintain an insulated media bubble where they can build their false caricatures of the gun culture unchallenged by viewpoints and arguments which could call their caricature into question. Dana Loesch’s appearance on The View is a clear and present threat to their ability to maintain that bubble.
I woke up early today, took a look outside, and went back to bed. It was really coming down, and what’s worse, it’s the wet stuff; the kind of snow so heavy, you might as well be shoveling dead beavers off the driveway. All the previous snow was well on its way to melting away yesterday, but today it’s back with a vengeance. The office is closed today, but since this is one of my work from home days, it doesn’t really matter. Here’s some news links:
About the Super Bowl ad you didn’t see last night. The NFL is anti-gun folks. Hate to tell ya. Every time you watch the NFL, God shreds a vintage 1911.
A CSGV supporting politician goes to jail for domestic violence.
Someone tried to do a FOIA request of some of the 4473s sitting in an ATF warehouse in West Virginia and were denied. Good. I generally support transparent government, but not when it’s requesting information it really has no business asking about in the first place.
Uncle doesn’t think MDA’s Nashville chapter is going to last long. I’m going to guess that’s already a pretty small meeting.
The problems of early voting. Because being an informed voter takes some time, I think the easier and more convenient we make voting, the more people will be casting completely uninformed ballots. I am against early voting.
More gun laws in Massachusetts? They didn’t do much after Sandy Hook. It’s hard to say whether this is serious or just hot air from a windbag, but something to keep and eye on.
Dana Loesch takes on ABC’s “Young Guns.” Fortunately for us, the network news organizations have far far less influence than they used to. One of the great social advances of the past couple of decades is that more and more people seem to understand our media is full of crap. I’ll have more to say about Dana Loesch later.
Percentage who think our gun laws are too strict triples. That’s very good news. Those of us who believe we could use a lot less gun control have generally been a small minority. What I’m hoping is that a lot of these new gun owners have learned what the laws are, and they are pissed.
The weaponization of government. This was my biggest concern about electing a President from Chicago. This is how things are done there. Here’s an example on guns, for instance.
“Irish Democracy” at work in Colorado.
No one will want to take point.
Yes, let the hand wringing continue in Chicago.
Why would students on campus possibly need guns for self-defense?
Because the political elites in Chicago should have to read stories like this. They need to read stories like this:
Vernon has been a firearm owner and activist for decades, but he doesn’t fit the stereotype of a gun nut. He’s a middle-class African-American who lives on Chicago’s south side. A former university administrator, he’s studied civil rights history for decades. A framed photo of Malcolm X hangs in the living room of his modest home. He voted against Mitt Romney in the last presidential election—though he can’t quite bring himself to admit that he cast a ballot for President Obama.
Vernon is also a member of the NRA, mostly because the organization offers top-notch training and certification courses used by federal law enforcement agencies. But he admits to some mixed feelings. “The only thing we agreed on was guns,” he says of the NRA. On the issue of gun-ownership rights, “I’m on the same side as a lot of people who are very conservative and certainly would be considered right of center.”
There’s really nothing remarkable about the firing line pictured in the article, as they look like most gun folk to me, save their color of skin not fitting the typical progressive narrative of rural, fat, middle-aged white guys
This is everyone’s right. It belongs to all of us. That has to be our motivating force in moving the ball forward. The Second Amendment should be no different in Chicago than Cheyenne, and the court wins have succeeded in making Chicago a little more like Cheyenne. We haven’t gone far enough, but just four years ago, Chicago progressives could rest happy in their own insulated media bubble, and never have to read articles like this that challenged their preconceived notions. The fact that they now do is what I call progress!
An anti-gun activist was convicted of domestic violence and is currently serving jail time. It’s news because he’s also an anti-gun lawmaker still serving in the legislature from his jail cell.
When I first noticed the “welcome” piece from the Indianapolis Star I didn’t comment on the bits where the author implied that NRA & the convention bureau were trying to keep the convention a secret, claiming that “the NRA was uncharacteristically low-key about its plans” and that tourism officials were “not touting one of the largest convention it’s bagged in years.” I just thought it was part of his hit piece.
It turned out that this seems to be a common view in the Indy media based on this article. They say that NRA is blaming a miscommunication, but they still imply that NRA was trying to hide their location.
It’s as if local reporters are looking to bash NRA for their own failures. Just in a quick search, we’ve been talking about Indianapolis as a known location since early 2012. It hasn’t been a secret. No one has been hiding anything, nor has NRA been particularly low-key. They usually don’t start advertising until the year of the event. This year, it’s a little more complex since a good portion of the people in driving distance are also in driving distance of the Harrisburg sportsman’s show, one of the largest shows in the country, that starts this weekend. They have to balance out advertising for each event, which historically hasn’t been an issue. Regardless, the fact that Indy is hosting the convention has not been some big secret, contrary to their assertions.
It’s as if the media is so desperate to attack NRA that they are now reaching make up new controversies that really comes down to a situation where journalists are just too lazy to use Google.
