Bitter – Page 47 – Shall Not Be Questioned

The Nanny State Comes from Voters

Remember that the nanny state isn’t just the work of power-hungry politicians looking to control every aspect of your lives. There are people who actually purposefully support this kind of control because they want all types of fun by others that might possibly disrupt their bubble to be banned. Think I’m kidding? This report come from the York, PA reporter seemingly in charge of the local beat today:

A woman just called 911 because the fireworks are scaring her cat. So stop scaring cats, all you Independence Day celebratory brats!!

— Chris Otto (@YDRChrisOtto) July 5, 2013

Think about that for a moment. A woman called the emergency services line to report that the government needs to put a stop to other people’s fun because it may be disrupting her cats. She may be a little off, but there’s a good chance that she would actually consider this a reasonable use of force to send a police officer with a gun after someone who simply frightened her cat. And she’s likely allowed to vote. There is no minimum sanity requirement for voting.

The Latest Not-Really-Pro-Gun Group

Tomorrow, a new group claiming to represent America’s gun owners will launch that claims to be for “SANE” gun ownership policies. Their goal is to be an alternative to NRA on everything, including safety and firearms education. Yet, they also proudly declare that none of them are experts on firearms handling. That’s not their only disconcerting claim.

R + P CEO Waylan Johnson, a petroleum magnate, tells Whispers he hopes the group will also set itself apart by being more focused on members than the NRA.

“The NRA represents the firearms industry. There’s not a lot of membership input,” Johnson says.

This was a quote, presumably said with a straight face, by a man declared as CEO by an organization that, according to their own “Join” page, doesn’t appear to have a mechanism for the membership to vote on the leadership. Meanwhile, the supposedly firearms industry-run NRA sent out 1,718,786 ballots for NRA members to vote on the organization’s leadership this year.

There are so many over-the-top claims that this group is making, it’s really laughable that any reporter gave their PR girl the time of day. For example, their number one priority for use of member dollars? “Helping to Identify and Get Treatment for the Mentally Ill to prevent firearms abuse” So are they a mental health organization with professionals on staff to identify mentally ill people? Everything I’ve found about the leaders indicate that their backgrounds are in IT, energy, and other business ventures. How will these non-medical professionals designate appropriate treatment that will supposedly focus on preventing firearms abuse? They say the money will be spent on such treatment, so prospective members have a right to know about these programs they claim they fund.

This new American Rifle & Pistol Association says that their number two priority in using member dollars is to “Promoting Programs Aimed at Getting Illegal Guns off the Streets,” yet they tell us nothing about how they define an illegal gun or what those programs look like. Does that mean member dollars will be used to fund gun buybacks that often collect and destroy antiques and collectible firearms? Does it mean to support a registration system for all gun owners? There are all sorts of things such a broad message could mean.

The group wants you to know that they will give members “Representation before Elected Officials on behalf of the Voice of the R+P Membership,” presumably by the leadership team who have never made any donations of any kind to any officials as documented by OpenSecrets.org and the Texas Ethics Commission. In fact, the leaders want members to feel good about the fact that they have no background in lobbying and that they are NOT experts in the new field they will start lobbying in. Talk about convincing members that they are in the very best of hands…

For a group that claims to want to make sure that gun owners are trained in “SANE” handling, they so far refuse to share any information about their supposed “competency training and certification courses” that will presumably be developed by their non-expert leaders who are not actually elected or accountable to members. Unlike NRA-ILA’s library of resources on various issues that explain topics and give a general indication of their positions on the specifics of firearms policies, R+P provides no such information for prospective members. I guess their idea of “member-centric” is to keep prospective members in the dark about their actual planned lobbying efforts so that it’s all a big secret until you hand over the cash.

I’m curious how long the 15 minutes will last for this new astroturf group. I’m also curious as to how long they will continue the Horrible Capitalization Abuse on Their Website.

UPDATE: It turns out that the Enemies Of Proper Capitalization Use are also not such fans of gun ownership as they claim. (Thanks to reader Andrew for the tip.)

Here are the screenshots that show the Connecticut converted to Texan Chairman of American Rifle & Pistol Association who is an Obama supporter who is pushing Bloomberg/MAIG’s gun control campaigns while helping to promote Moms Demand Action, a group trying to pressure companies to ban lawful concealed carry so gun owners can’t carry in public anymore and convince gun retailers to stop selling the most popular guns in the country.

Mike Bloomberg isn’t the only gun control supporting New Yorker that Peter Vogt promotes, as evidenced by his repeated sharing of a NY-based website run by people who believe that Senators supporting Second Amendment rights deserve the label of child killers.

Vogt is also a fan of New York lawmakers who are more interested in name-calling against gun owners than actually trying to have a conversation about concerns for Second Amendment rights.

These are the publicly shared views of American Rifle & Pistol Association’s leader, and it certainly does not appear to reflect someone who is actually concerned with protecting the individual right to bear arms. These shared materials reflect an ally of groups that would take your guns without a trial, ban licensed concealed carry owners from even getting a cup of coffee at the most common coffee house around, and who thinks that gun owners with concerns about federal legislation are just little jackasses.

Just like the concept of “member-centric,” I don’t think that the leaders of American Rifle & Pistol Association actually understand the concept of being pro-Second Amendment.

More on Giffords/Kelly Election Consequences

It does look like there may be some election-related consequences for Democrats targeted by Mark Kelly and Gabby Giffords. They just aren’t the kinds of consequences Kelly is hoping for these days.

It looks like the only impact they may have for the North Dakota stop of their gun control tour is to drive the Democrats about 200 miles out town to avoid the anti-gun event.

$38 Million for Gun Companies

It looks like one mid-state Pennsylvania Republican is putting in a request for some state economic investment dollars to go for luring gun companies to the Commonwealth from anti-gun states. Back in February, several lawmakers at the state level started writing letters to gun companies in unfriendly states asking them to consider Pennsylvania.

I’m not really going to comment on the use of millions of taxpayer dollars to bring gun companies in since I don’t know much about the program. In the article, the third paragraph describes the $38 million as matching grants that sound like handouts, but then eight paragraphs later, the program is described as a loan program.

Kahr has already signed a contract with Pike County, PA authorities as of mid-June to start the process of getting permits and engineers out to a 620-acre business park that they can snatch up for $2 million. They’ve apparently already hired many of the firms needed to seal the deal, and they started a search for someone to oversee the process. (Oddly, even though the company was already starting the process of securing the Pennsylvania property, they apparently had a contest on Facebook asking fans what state they should move to.)

West Virginia Lost Jobs Due to Joe Manchin

Remind me that the next time I’m at an event with Jeff Reh from Beretta that I just need to go hug him and tell him he’s awesome. Hell, maybe I need to convince Sebastian to treat me to a Beretta firearm as a reward. He’d probably find that less creepy than a hug from someone he doesn’t really know at all well.

Why am I lovin’ on Beretta tonight? Because of this incredibly awesome letter Jeff Reh, Beretta’s general counsel, wrote to West Virginia officials citing the actions of Sen. Joe Manchin as the reason they will not consider any expansion into the state–an expansion that would bring with it more jobs.

In a letter to the Hardy County Rural Development Authority, Reh wrote that Beretta analyzed each state that offered the company a new home to determine its stance on Second Amendment rights.

“As a consequence of that analysis and especially due to Senator Manchin’s recent legislative choices we have decided not to consider your State for our future plans of expansion,” he wrote.

“We know that anti-gun sentiments are not shared by everyone within your State but we are looking first and foremost for a widespread and stable place of political support in any potential location.”

This is a gift to the next challenger to Sen. Manchin, and the headlines it is producing put into direct context the consequences of Manchin’s actions in Washington.

Groupon Responds to Markets

Perhaps in an effort to save their stock value that has been falling almost since they went public, Groupon has decided not to run their business based on politics anymore. They have recently started offering shooting sports & training coupons again in areas where there was strong interest from both consumers and businesses.

The funniest part of the article is from Coalition to Stop Gun ~~Violence~~ Ownership who decried that Groupon didn’t put out a press release in advance of the change. Ladd declares such policy changes without notifying ~~him~~ the media to be “wrong” and “underhand[ed].”

Lost & Stolen Reporting for Us, Not Them

I find it interesting that not a single city in Pennsylvania with officials who claimed “lost & stolen” reporting criminal code was absolutely vital to fighting street gun crimes has ever charged anyone with violating the law. (They largely don’t do it because then it gives standing for us to sue.)

But it looks like any city with one of those laws on the books might want to take a closer look at any U.S. Park Police personnel working armed in their city limits. It turns out that federal government employees have a special talent for losing guns.

According to the report, investigators discovered 1,400 guns that were supposed to have been destroyed. An additional 198 handguns donated to the Park Police by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms that are not reflected in official records are being housed in a building in Southeast D.C. There is no evidence that the wayward guns have found their ways into the hands of criminals, but the report noted that the Park Police might not be aware if they had.

They are so careless that they wouldn’t even know if they lost a gun and it ended up in criminal hands. Though one might not want to call it careless since their entire system of firearms management is apparently described as “conditions that would allow for theft and misuse of firearms, and the ability to conceal the fact if weapons were missing.” The report says that the attitude of not giving a damn where guns end up isn’t just a low-level employee thing, it apparently goes all the way up to the chief.

What Checks & Balances Really Means…

Since when did the concept of a three branch system of government end being defined as “whatever one guy wants to do”? I’m just curious about the understanding of checks and balances in Illinois after reading this article on the status of their concealed carry bill.

Many lawmakers expect Quinn to use the issue to try to help himself politically, taking advantage of his amendatory veto powers to rewrite the bill to make it more stringent. On Thursday, Madigan said she agreed that the governor would rewrite the bill.

The comments came at a luncheon where she encouraged female politicians to use their children as political props to create a “soft” image, but to be careful not to be so blatant about it that voters can actually see that they view their offspring as political tools.

Is That a Gun in Your Pocket Underwear…

It seems that one Pennsylvania police officer may have taken the joke about having a gun in one’s pants a little too seriously and actually confused underpants for a gun.

I’m not even going to attempt to judge the merits of the shooting or the lawsuit by the man who was shot against the city. I’m not sure where you begin when the situation begins with a man was standing in a dark alley holding a pair of black underwear.

Charges Against WV NRA T-Shirt Teen Dropped?

According to a very initial report from WOWK, it seems the criminal charges against the West Virginia teenager who wore an NRA t-shirt to school have been dropped.

As Sebastian said when I informed him of this update, the news of the dropped charges should have come with an apology letter that acknowledges they never should have brought them in the first place. Obviously, that’s unlikely.

I was hearing reports about attempts to organize rallies, and I’m sure we’re not the only ones who highlighted that the judge who banned the media from the courthouse in this case and the district attorney who oversees the two prosecutors who not only brought charges, but then tried to silence the boy and his family, are elected. They can still be sent home during the next election.