Bitter – Page 49 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Winning the Culture

I noticed something interesting on Pinterest yesterday. Hobby Lobby posted a pin of this product in a new category dedicated to western-themed room decor:

Throughout the day when I checked, that product was their most re-pinned and most “liked” pin they had posted in any western decor. I checked out who re-pinned and where, 30 of those re-pins were to boards clearly labeled for home decor. About half a dozen were to boards designated as gift ideas. The vast majority of all boards were clearly run by women.

Keep in mind the context of this pin. This is from a craft store with a target audience of women, and this is a product they stock and also sell online. (Lordy, I miss Hobby Lobby. I like Michaels, and Joann is okay, but Hobby Lobby is supreme in crafting, IMHO.) Actual sales data from other sources indicate that these re-pins aren’t all just people browsing without buying and displaying since an antique-style Winchester Rifle sign is in Amazon’s top 20 of decorative signs.

When I see things like this, it really does hit home that even as our community has taken a few significant political hits on the chin in places like Colorado where its hard to imagine such losses, we are making public awareness of gun ownership a normal thing. Unless you live in Manhattan or San Francisco, saying that you own and shoot guns isn’t likely to get you looks like you have a second head anymore. (Even those places, it may only get you one because that’s how those people think they should react.)

But when you can go to a party and the hostess hands you a glass designated yours by the revolver wine charm, we’re winning. When the 7th most popular ice cube tray on Amazon is makes ice in the shape of handguns, we’re winning. When half of the one star reviews on the product come from anti-gunners who are outraged that such products are even sold, we’re winning.

The next step is to converting the “new normal” of recognizing gun ownership without ridicule to actual action on behalf of the Second Amendment, even if it is minimal action. In some ways, being part of the new normal (at least the relatively newly recognized, since gun ownership was always somewhat prevalent) makes it tougher to motivate people. It makes it easier to fall victim to notion that no commonly owned firearm is really under threat because everyone knows that the Supreme Court said we’re good on guns and so many people own them, so clearly they are safe.

Messaging Fail in Colorado Recall

A key message of the pro-gun advocates trying to unseat Senate President John Morse is that he’s a stooge for New York City’s mayor and not really representing his district in Colorado.

So what is the first message he posted as it appeared the Secretary of State would approve enough signatures for his recall?

Meanwhile, Mr. Morse, a Colorado Springs Democrat, released a statement Monday on his Facebook page asking for out-of-state help from those in traditionally liberal cities to help fight the recall effort.

â€œWe can get phone lists to you and things like that and have you help from Boston, Massachusetts, or San Francisco, California,â€ said Mr. Morse in a video message.

It’s like he thinks that being controlled by out-of-state interests is a good campaign message. Somehow I doubt that is the case for a guy who only won his last election by a few hundred votes.

But I hope that he keeps putting out videos like this. It just makes the job of people who support his recall easier. I hope that pro-gun folks use his own words against him and highlight in their door-to-door campaigning that Morse is calling on people from Boston, San Francisco, and NYC to buy this election for him. I mean if he didn’t want that to be the key theme of his campaign, then presumably he would not have made that the first video of his campaign, right?

Quality of Life & Gun Ownership

ExurbanKevin has a story out of north central Massachusetts that highlights the issues with may issue concealed carry laws. The Fitchburg, MA police chief takes pride in the fact that he denies carry permits to about 90% of new applicants. To those 90%, he adds the restriction that they may only use their firearms for hunting and target practice.

What’s interesting about the story that isn’t explicitly stated is that the other town he mentions, Leominster, will issue a concealed carry license without restriction to new applicants, or at least they would 10 years ago. I know because I got mine through Leominster.

In fact, due to the Massachusetts gun laws, I couldn’t look for housing after I graduated college like most recent grads–finding the cheapest place with the fewest possible roommates in the neighborhood least likely to result in a stolen or damaged car.

My first step was drawing a circle around the city in which I would be working to encompass any city within reasonable driving distance where the gas wouldn’t make me go broke before I even took home a paycheck. Then, I checked with the local gun community about all the cities within that circle. The cheapest and closest apartments I could find were in a city that refused to issue concealed carry licenses. That was off the list. Eventually, after taking several other options off the list either due to the unknown issuing policies or because it was widely known they add restrictions to licenses, I found a place that I could just barely afford in Leominster.

I admit that I really liked Leominster. My apartment wasn’t in the greatest of neighborhoods, but the crime rate was sure as hell better than the neighboring Fitchburg (which does not issue for carry, and, according to what I’d heard, did not issue then, either). It was a cute apartment; my car remained safe, as did my boyfriend’s when he came to visit. The times I did have a scare–when there was a domestic dispute involving some death threats outside my bedroom windows and when maintenance accidentally left my door partially open after fixing the a/c–I didn’t have to worry about restrictions on my license getting me into trouble. I could grab my gun out of my purse and have it ready if needed. As a woman living alone in an area where family was a good 14 hours away, a boyfriend who lived about 4 hours away, and my closest good friends were back in Western Massachusetts a good hour or more away, I appreciated the fact that I had a tool to defend myself if needed.

But the fact remains that I had to spend substantially more money in rent and living expenses in order to have that peace of mind. That single decision by the police department to issue or deny my right to self-defense changed the entire equation about my lifestyle choices. At least I had the economic freedom to have a little wiggle room that would allow me to choose a jurisdiction that recognized self-defense. For those less fortunate, they still don’t have those options, and that’s a problem we need fix.

Your Friday Laugh

Even the most jaded should be able to find a little humor in this take on the massive NSA data collection:

Spoofs like this are great ways to spread larger ideas.

Administration’s Gun Control Priorities vs Senate Democratic Priorities

This is a great day to call your Congressional Representative and let them know you stand for gun rights, and you want to make sure they remember to do the same. Today, the Obama Administration is pushing gun control again. I mentioned the rallies previously, but people on his mailing list are also getting an email pitch from the daughter of the Sandy Hook principal urging phone calls to Congress.

In the weeks and months after that horrible day, lawmakers from across the country told us, the families of the victims, that they’d take action to make our communities safer. What we found out is that, for some of our members of Congress, those were empty promises.

It’s very sad about those empty promises. It’s not quite as sad as the blatant partisan nature of this call to action that is designed to try and demonize the GOP-controlled House when it’s the Democratic Senate that acknowledges they should be the first to pass a bill with any chance of moving.

What I find most interesting about this partisan pitch by a gun control activist is that it shows how unserious they really are about the actual cause as opposed to the politics of promoting their party. All of my local lawmakers know that I’m with them because of gun rights. I’ll be against them, should it be warranted, because of gun rights. My support focuses on actually getting things accomplished or keeping threats at bay rather than simply using the issue to hurt a political party. That does not appear to be the case for many of the new advocates for gun control. If this woman wanted action, she would insist that her email be targeted to Senators, not Republican House members.

Meanwhile, Charles Cooke from National Review highlights the rather shocking (to none outside of the White House) news that contrary to what the Obama Administration is trying to demand of Democrats, they have no serious desire to keep harping on gun control.

Do you mean to say that a couple of months after the bill went down, there isnâ€™t, magically, a groundswell of support for its revival? That the statistics showing that Americans really donâ€™t care about this and donâ€™t want the Senate to spend its time on it havenâ€™t changed? That the 2014 elections are still going to be held in 2014, and that conservative Democrats still fear the voters on this issue?

When you combine the efforts of Bloomberg with the Obama team, I have to wonder if they have decided it is time to purge the Democratic Party of all leaders who find gun ownership remotely acceptable. While Obama isn’t being quite as hostile to pro-gun Dems as Bloomberg, he’s still trying to brand the GOP as the party to save gun rights with his attacks on the House.

Priorities in Washington, DC

If you’re a Washington, DC resident, you can qualify for a license to purchase marijuana, a substance banned under federal laws, for $100.

Meanwhile, a license to possess a handgun in your home, a constitutionally protected right, will set you back nearly double that amount.

Priorities.

Colorado Senate Recall Issues

I’ll give him credit, it appears as though Colorado’s Senate President is going to cling to power with everything he’s got after his gun control games. According to “A Whole Lot of People for John Morse,” his recall campaign team, they plan to challenge to every single signature filed.

…Morse backers note that they plan to contest every signature submitted if enough are verified to move forward with a recall election.

It doesn’t seem to matter how obviously qualified a signature is, their comments to the press indicate they will still challenge the validity in an attempt to disqualify recall petition signers. Now, I generally don’t have too much of a problem with challenging some signatures. That’s because a certain number of signatures on any legal petition will be invalid. However, if they truly plan to contest every single name, that’s purposely just wasting the time and resources of the courts and agencies overseeing elections in an effort to truly disenfranchise valid and legal voters.

To his credit, not even the Democratic Party leader appears to be willing to go that far. He simply says that they plan to “scrutinize and comb through all of the purported signatures.” Then he follows that up with complaints about the cost of having elections and claims that they are absolutely not in any way talking about asking the Senator to resign in order to keep the seat in Democratic hands–even though Democratic advisors have been very vocal about the possibility of resignation and how it would be less embarrassing for Morse than losing a recall.

Producing the Next Generation of Gun Owners

Yesterday, I was invited to check out the facilities of a Boy Scout reservation that has benefited from a few grants funded by Eastern Pennsylvania Friends of NRA. All I can say is wow. Wow.

It’s not that their facilities (shooting or otherwise) are the fanciest or most amazing I’ve ever seen. It’s the creativity and ingenuity of making every dime their shooting program receives go as far as it possibly can. It’s the fact that many of their campers come from out-of-state – states like Maryland, New Jersey, and New York – so this camp is often the only opportunity the gun community has to reach these boys. It’s the fact that regardless of the fact that they don’t have the facilities to serve special needs and disabled kids, their organizers put their heads together to make it happen and got those boys their rifle merit badges.

Seeing all the ways that they have had to problem solve with limited or restricted funds is mind-blowing, but hearing their hopes for expanding and improving the facilities to focus on accommodating more scouts is just plain impressive. Unfortunately, they can only do it if they receive the funding for it. And this is why I volunteer.

Because more than 5,000 boys from around the PA/NJ/NY/MD area go through this camp every summer. Think about that. More than 5,000 boys have the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of shooting safely and get a chance to learn about the joys of the shooting sports every single summer because of this one camp.

Of course, rifle and shotgun shooting aren’t the only thing this camp offers. There’s archery, rock climbing, swimming, fishing, paintball, and even a science building. Apparently, the number of merit badges that can be earned at this one location are pretty ridiculous compared to other camps.

OFA Out with Rallies in Pennsylvania Again

It looks like the Obama machine is trying to distract from the list of scandals piling up, and they are out to rally for gun control again. They’ve got several events in Southeast PA, specifically geared to drive photo ops for press.

If you’re in Rep. Pat Meehan’s district, why not give his office a call on that day and let the staff know that pro-gun voters turn out when it matters – at the polls. The number for the office to be protested is (610) 690-7323.

I’m curious if the turnout will be similar to this Illinois anti-gun rally.

UPDATE: Adding two more SE Pennsylvania events.

Big Push for Hunting in Pennsylvania

It looks like Pennsylvania’s ban on Sunday hunting is going to be challenged in the courts since the legislature refuses to act. The suit will apparently be brought on rather interesting grounds:

Specifically, the letter says “the prohibition on hunting certain species on Sunday” is “unconstitutional under the First, Second and 14th amendments to the United States Constitution.”

And on a somewhat related note, some new partnership to highlight the economic benefits of hunting is launching at the State Capitol tomorrow.

I actually think that the economic benefits of hunting are under utilized as talking points in the Second Amendment community. We look at gun sales data and think nothing of using those data points, but hunting is one of our community’s sports that requires far more than just a gun and ammunition. The equipment and trips drive quite a bit of money into government coffers. That should be highlight just like other economic indicators in the sports.

In fact, I think it would be handy if more groups that sanction, run, or really do any kind of formal organizing of shooting sports did some economic impact studies. Hell, even local gun clubs could just do some not-so-scientific polling of their members to get an idea of what kind of economic impact they have on the local communities, and that can be used when talking to lawmakers about why it’s good to avoid restrictions on our rights.