Sebastian – Page 398 – Shall Not Be Questioned

VPC: The Most Irrelevant Anti-Gun Group?

The Violence Policy Center is busy bowling us over with the might of their research, once again. This time telling us that cars are becoming so safe that people killing themselves with guns is becoming a higher cause of death in some states than auto accidents. Eugene Volokh takes apart some of the flawed logic on display here.

I would make a wager that the Violence Policy Center has become the most irrelevant anti-gun group out there. If they disappeared tomorrow, I don’t think the anti-gun movement would notice. VPC is, in fact, in trouble as an organization. One can see from their Form 990 for 2010, that pretty much their sole purpose as an organization is to serve as a jobs program for Josh Sugarmann and Kristen Rand, who compromise approximately 55% of their salary expenses. Also worth noting that public support, a measure the IRS uses to determine whether a non-profit organized under 501(c)(3) is a “public charity” or a “private foundation,” has been in precipitous decline at the VPC. The IRS generally requires an organization to receive one third of its support from public sources in order to be considered a public charity. There are mitigating factors that the IRS considers, but it you look at the total return for 2010, it follows with a letter which essentially begs the IRS not to classify them as a private foundation, which would eliminate certain deductions, and make donor information public. VPC’s 17% of public support in 2010 should be very worrying for them, since below 10%, regardless of mitigating factors, you cannot claim public charity status. Here’s how VPC’s public support has been trending:

Year	% Donations to VPC From General Public
2007	24.19%
2008	22.01%
2009	17.82%
2010	16.93%

One can see that as VPC has become increasingly dependent on grants from a small number of foundational donors, they are increasingly less and less qualifying to be considered a public charity. In contrast, EFSGV’s public support percentage is 87.5%, and Brady Center’s is 97.41%. Given these facts, it’s amazing that VPC isn’t trying to do more to be relevant. I can’t imagine the good graces of the IRS will last forever, and they are dropping precipitously close to the 10% floor beyond which no one can claim to be publicly supported.

I think it just desserts that the organization behind the assault weapons strategy is now, probably, the most irrelevant gun control group out there, and quickly on its way to even greater irrelevancy as a private foundation no one pays attention or donates to. You have to wonder how long before even their Joyce backers realize their grants to VPC are just good money chasing bad.

More “Insurrectionist Timeline” Hypocrisy

Thirdpower finds another instance of left wing eliminationist rhetoric that isn’t going to be showing up on CSGV’s Insurrectionist Timeline anytime soon.

Deinstitutionalization and Mass Murder

Clayton Cramer has an interesting article in the Federalist Society publication that looks at the rise in mass shootings, and how they coincided with mass deinstitutionalization. I actually think it should be pretty difficult to commit someone to an institution against their will, but it’s pretty clear that complete deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill hasn’t served either the public, or the mentally ill, as well as many proponents of it had hoped.

Patrick Purdy, a mentally ill drifter, used his Social Security Disability payments to buy guns, while having a series of run-ins with the law. After one suicide attempt in jail in 1987, a mental health evaluation concluded that he was â€œa danger to his health and others.â€²⁷Â In January 1989, Purdy went onto a schoolyard in Stockton, California with an AK-47 rifle, murdered five children and wounded twenty-nine others, before taking his own life.

And you can see how this issue affects ours. Californians now live under their assault weapons regime because the State of California, rather than ensure that the clinically insane were institutionalized, decided to, every so slightly, institutionalize everyone else in the state by limiting everyone else’s freedom.

State Attorneys General Support National Reciprocity

A letter to Congressmen Stearns and Shuler, from 22 state Attorneys General. Who is not among the signers? Linda Kelly, the Attorney General of Pennsylvania, who replaced Tom Corbett when he became Governor. Disappointing.

Obama in the Primaries

According to Gateway Pundit, Obama has lost 36 Arkansas counties to a man known as John Wolfe. Who he is we don’t know. In Kentucky, however, he lost 67 counties to “uncommitted.” But hey, at least he didn’t lose them to a prison inmate, right?

As much as I’d like to joke, it’s still going to be close. This race is going to hinge on a couple of states, among them being Florida and Ohio, which are currently tossups.

Open Carry and the Political Process

I have been following the debate in Caleb’s comment section, and I wanted to point out a particular thread. I have to photo capture this because Caleb’s theme doesn’t seem to easily allow linking to comments:

I think John makes a good point. We’re really not as far along in this debate as many think. Gun owners need to repeat this unfortunate fact: the vast majority of Americans are wholly unconcerned with their rights, other than the rights which affect their individual, daily lives. If you’re talking about appealing to a deeply held principle of natural rights, that makes perfect sense to people who have studied Locke, or read the writings of Jefferson, Madison, or Adams, you’re talking about a concept that completely alien to the people who actually vote in elections. You can blame the educational system, or what have you, but the vast majority of the American public are not ideological voters. Most voters vote their interests, and you have to appeal to that.

Robb’s frustration in this is completely understandable. I have shared it many times. You will drive yourself crazy by what other gun owners are unwilling to do to support their own rights, even though we all share broad agreement. I don’t think many gun owners really understand the house of cards that this issue is built on, largely because of another bias in that thinking other people, of course, naturally have similar thought processes to you.

I have pointed out this thread, because I think this is one of those cases both people are making really excellent points. Worrying about public backlash is a concern of someone who understands the outer limits of this debate. We’re talking the issue being pushed by a determined minority, and if that determined minority is meets the brick wall of obstinate public opinion, the issue won’t advance much farther.

How far you can push your issue as a determined minority completely hinges on your ability to influence legislators and threaten their cushy jobs. It hinges on nothing else. If they are not true believers, and almost none of them are, your ability to influence them comes down to, in reality, a good poker bluff. You have to make them believe you can threaten their seat if the bluff gets called. But the politician you’re influencing also is bluffing. He’s betting you don’t have votes behind you on an issue he’s trying to avoid taking a position on, or is thinking about taking a contrary position on.

Neither you, nor they, may be entirely convinced who’s really bluffing. It is an accepted fact in politics now that when the gun vote really does get motivated, the results are epic. That’s the space you, as an activist, have to work in. If the politician in question calls your bluff, you better be sure you can deliver, or else your credibility is finished, and you can expect that legislator will no longer give a rat’s behind about anything you have to say.

This is the nature of the game, and it is a game. Don’t for a second kid yourself politics is about principles, logic, or deeply held tradition. You can appeal to these things; rhetoric is important, but it no more than a part of the game, of building a mystique, of posturing and maneuvering. It serves no purpose apart from that. It is deeply cultural, but also, at the end of the day still a game.

My opinions on open carry are driven largely by the fact that I see it divides gun owners, and our losses have always been driven through issues that divide us, whether it be background checks, or years ago the utility of these newfangled AR-15s, or cheap Chinese semi-automatic knockoffs of the AK-47. Our opponents have traditionally won where they’ve been able to exploit division in the ranks. Let me clarify that — our opponents have only won where they’ve been able to exploit division in the ranks. So I think when you get other activists, not just ordinary gun owners saying, “You know, I’m just not sure about this,” that should give you very serious pause, and open carry is one of those issues.

The question is whether, like the assault weapons issue, we can spend the next two decades educating people. I think what motivates most gun owner activists which are wary of open carry, is that even if it is a topic that 20 years of education can turn around, Â it’s practically worth the effort expended when compared to other issues we have to build consensus for. In many ways, I think constitutional carry (i.e. carry, open or concealed, without a license) is less radical than open carry as a form of activism among gun owners. I think it is always important in considering whether a particular course of action offers opportunity to your opponents, and I believe in some cases, this can be the case with open carry. But not in all cases.

OC Debate: Ride the Llama

Caleb seems to have decided to ride the Drama Llama, along with Rob Pincus, on the issue of open carry. Says Pincus:Â â€œI am vehemently against the ass-clownery of people carrying openly to make a political statement.â€Â So let the Llama come.

I would not go so far as Pincus, to suggest there is never any instance where open carrying to make a political statement is a bad idea. In fact, if the Supreme Court were to uphold carry rights in a manner that allowed New Jersey to have to pick, and it picked open carry, I’d suggest everyone should do that there, all the time. Why? Because if it’s a protected right, I believe you may be able to get people and politicians to agree to allow concealed carry in order to make the issue go away such that they no longer have to deal with it. There are plenty of instances I can think of where OC, as a political statement, can have potential benefits.

But I am in agreement with Pincus that this was not a wise move in California, and California’s legislature’s behavior was entirely predictable. Chris in Alaska suggest blaming the activists is like blaming battered women for domestic violence. Ultimately, the California legislature is the one responsible for its constitutional infringements, much like a bear is responsible for mauling you. But if you poked the bear with a stick? The bear is being a bear, and legislatures will be legislatures. We do not have the political power in California to stop anything. Even bullet buttons are now possibly on the chopping block in the Golden state, and as Joe notes, the politicians are basically telling gun owners to shut the hell up and BOHICA.

California has been pushed over the edge. It’s not coming back except through court mandate. I believe pushing OC as a political statement there was foolish, but I can’t agree that all instances of it are. As Robb notes, much depends on how you approach the issue.

Polling in Zimmerman Case

Rasmussen shows that 40% of the public believe Zimmerman’s shooting Martin was self-defense, versus 24% that think it was murderÂ (WARNING: This link will auto-play an ad, but I couldn’t find a version that did not, but I provide it for reference).

Our opponents bet a lot that this was the horse that was going to help get them back in contention. It’s looking increasingly like this has turned out to be a lame horse.

Eddie Eagle

Our opponents are always cynical, and critical of the effectiveness of NRA’s Eddie Eagle program. Well, here is one instance where a kid found a gun and did the right thing. In their minds, Eddie Eagle has to be a sinister, cynical plot by the gun lobby, because if it’s not, and if it actually works, it means our side is doing more to reduce gun violence than they are.

Leaky

We’ve got rain in the forecast for the next seven days. We burned through all the nice, bright sunny days fixing issues with the roof that were unexpected, so we’re going through this weather with noting but tarpaper between the house and the weather. Last night we got a leak which came down the ceiling fan and soaked part of the bed, unfortunately, so up I go into the attic crawlspace with buckets at 4AM. I had to tack old business cards to where it was coming in to keep the water from following down past where I was putting the buckets, and that seemed to work.

Everything I’ve read about roofing says the paper should keep the weather out temporarily, and its working fine on the front roof. A call is in to the contractor, who is coming over shortly to look at it. Fortunately, I’m a lot less cranky than I was last night.