The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
This should go over well with Pennsylvania coal miners:
So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.
Of course, now that Obama needs to win Pennsylvania, he’s in favor of Clean Coal you can believe in.
To summarize, make sure to get out and vote. Barack Obama is bad on guns.
I honestly wonder how many of the folks like Dan Cooper, and some of the people on here who have come on claiming to be hunters and gun owners, have really been paying attention to the issue, his record, and who’s been endorsing him. I mean, when a supposed hunters groups like American Hunters and Shooters Association comes out and says he’s their guy, and then the radical anti-hunting group like Humane Society of the United States comes out and says the same thing, alarm bells should be going off if you’re a hunter. If you’re a gun owner or shooter, the Brady Campaign endorsement should tell you something.
I have to conclude it’s just willful ignorance.  I understand people not being a single issue voter. There are a lot of gun owners out there who don’t self-identify as such — they vote primarily on other issues. That’s something I understand, even if I would emplore them to rank the Bill of Rights higher on their priority list. But Obama is awful on guns. His record makes that abundantly clear. If you care about the Second Amendment, how can you possibly claim that you support Obama? Don’t tell me what he’s saying now, in order to get elected: Tell me when in his career he’s supported the right to keep and bear arms. You can’t. Because it’s not there. It’s not only not there, Obama has spent most of his career trying to destroy the Second Amendment.
So, Obama supporting visitors, I challenge you to convince me what Barack Obama has done for the Second Amendment to support and preserve it. Don’t recite his campaign trail talking points. Find me one thing in his record that indicates he supports the Second Amendment. Then tell me why Dan Cooper, as a guy who makes his living manufacturing firearms, isn’t of his rocker for getting behind Obama. It might be his right to vote against his self-interest, but voting against the self-interest of his employees and customers? That’s not forgivable.
So according to various visitors to this blog over the past few days, I am a horrible monster for exercising my free speech rights to tell other gun owners not to buy Dan Cooper’s product (resulting in the board and employees asking him to step down), but I wonder what they have to say about what these people are doing.
Came back from the McCain/Manion rally to find our McCain/Palin sign had been ripped off the holder, and the holder bent beyond recognition. Fortunatly, we have dozens of holders since a lot of people we hand out signs to just want the sign without the holder. A little duct tape, and the sign is fixed and back out. I’m tempted to pepper spray the sign now! I will be compiling video of the rally later.
We’re off to the rally. If anyone wants to join, scroll down for details. We’ll be working outside the security checkpoint to recruit people for Sportsmen for McCain. Recruit as in get them all together so we can be one big, happy, cousin humping family inside the rally.
AHSA is apparently blaming NRA for Cooper’s ouster. First I heard anything from NRA on this one was Andrew’s comment in the USA Today article I linked to that mentioned me. It continues to amaze me how much these groups think NRA is capable of. Even if NRA were handing us marching orders, it would have to go through six different lawyers and layers of approval, to make sure no campaign finance laws were broken, and various other things, before it even got to us. Those of us in the blogosphere saw this, and brought attention to it. The rest was entirely grass roots:
Today, on behalf of the American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA), I condemned the actions by the NRA and its cronies forcing Dan Cooper out.
The gun lobby’s attempt to destroy a good man and small business owner, a loyal member of the gun fraternity, again reveals the desperate Joe McCarthy-like politics of fear that the NRA leadership and others put first. They are trying to scare America’s hunters and shooters into voting against Barack Obama — but we have one thing to say: vote hope and not fear.
We’re not the “gun lobby.” We’re people who care about the Second Amendment, and when it comes to Barack Obama’s record on that issue, we’re not spreading fear, we’re spreading the truth. Who are you going to believe? Those of us who actually hunt and shoot, or a guy who runs a supposed “Hunters and Shooters” group who has donated $5000 to Handgun Control Inc.
… you know the rest. I wanted to comment on a few things:
Fuck the Fudds.
They have been selling our gun rights down the river for the last 50 years.
They are ones who have allowed the anti-gun politicans to get away with the lie that the 2nd Amendement is about hunting.
I am on record supporting the banning of all Hunting Firearms that don’t have a self-defense purpose. Kill Bambi with your teeth, Hunters, if you can. The 2nd Amendment enumerates your right to self-defense, not some diaphonous right to shoot pheasants tied up in little cages under bushes that the guide releases when you get close.
All this is doing is helping the gun control folks is pull on the pry bars that they’ve wedged into the fissures of this movement. This is exactly the attitude that I jumped on Dan Cooper for, just coming from our side instaed of his. Understand that we need hunters in the gun movement. As many as we can get. We do not have the numbers to stand individually on our own, so that means we need to support the “fudds” even if all of them don’t always support us.
We have the data, and the arguments, to show that hunting is in every bit as much danger, and perhaps more, as gun rights are. Hunters may soon come to find they need us more than we need them. When it comes to that, we need to stand by them. The proper remedy is to convince hunters their interests lie with ours, and divisive language isn’t going to help achieve that.
Let the gun control people work the pry bars, we should be out there with cement trowels trying to smooth things over, not actively helping work the fissure.
As many of you know, I’ve been trying to recruit volunteers for pro-gun campaigns. I’ve had a fair amount of luck getting people on my mailing list, having roughly doubled it in size. But I’m having a real problem getting people to even show up at a rally with the possibility of great seating. I’m wondering whether I’m doing something wrong, or not making the right pitch.
One reason people court our vote is because when it does come for election time, sportsmen typically do turn out to the polls. But it takes more than that. Candidates have to see sportsmen, and they need to talk to them. They have to understand us, and understand our concerns. They don’t get that if we’re just a number buried in sheets of polling data. Already, in my district, I’m down to two endorsed state representative candidates. I have two other Republican candidates that didn’t even bother to turn in their NRA questionnaire this election, and so are big “?” in the voting guides.
Politicians aren’t going to notice us if they don’t see us at rallies, in the volunteer offices, on the streets, and in the election booths, and in their mailboxes. The reason my county is slowly pivoting from pro-gun to anti-gun is because sportsmen, who are numerous in this area, are doing nothing to prevent it. It takes more than voting and complaining. Gun owners and sportsmen really need to get off their butts and make the politicians pay attention to them. That means supporting the good guys, just as much as it means bashing the bad ones.
By virtue of most news accounts, the board of Cooper Firearms asked for and received the resignation of Dan Cooper. I do not believe the company, and in particular its several dozen employees, deserve to be punished for taking quick action to deal with anger from the community. As far as I am concerned, the issue is over. Our voices have been heard.
It might be true that Dan Cooper still owns stock in the company, and will still support Obama this election. Think about how many business you patronize on a regular basis. How many of those businesses have shareholders who donate money to anti-gun causes? I’m sure there are quite a few. I’m just not all that concerned if Cooper still holds a stake in the company. The problem with this whole thing was not that Dan Copper, the citizen, donated money to Obama and intended to vote for him. I might question his sanity, as a guy who makes his living making guns, for doing that, but that’s his right. The problem is that Dan Cooper spoke as a leader within the firearms community, as CEO of a firearms company, and in USA Today, gave a glowing endorsement of a candidate for President who’s spent most of his political career trying to destroy the Second Amendment. Cooper Firearms, the company, has done everything in their power to remedy this situation, and I’m going to come out and say they ought to be welcomed back into the community.