Bitter – Page 60 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Gun Owning Parents Targeted

Apparently, one New York lawmaker is horrified that 11-year-olds might possibly see guns safely displayed and purchased by law-abiding citizens. So she wants to ban that.

I just intro’d bill to prevent kids under 12 from going to gun shows.Kudos to @agschneiderman for agreement on Model Gun Show Procedures.

— Linda B. Rosenthal(@LindaBRosenthal) March 14, 2013

She obviously believes that gun owners with kids cannot be trusted since they might possibly pass on that tradition of firearms ownership. To respond to this “threat” that gun ownership may still happen in the next generation, she’s trying to make introducing your children to safe and lawful use of firearms a crime one step at a time.

Bloomberg vs. Obama on Gun Shops

While MAIG & Mike Bloomberg are trying to make it sound like it’s no big deal for people to find an FFL to handle every single firearm transfer. MAIG seems to be the go-to group for the White House, and yet President Obama has previously called for a ban on any FFL within 5 miles of any park or school.

Below is a graphic I created in 2008 as an example of what such a ban would mean for one area gun shop to show the impact for our suburbs. The areas covered in red would be off limits.

GunShopClosures

This proposal backed by the President would effectively shut down nearly every single gun store in the nation. While I realize that the gun shop ban hasn’t been in the latest round of gun control proposals, it has been a serious proposal by the President in the past. Considering that the background check bill floated in the Senate doesn’t open up the system for individuals looking to transfer a firearm, but rather forces them to go through FFLs, it isn’t inappropriate to consider whether a future step would be to target these gun shops for closure so that it is nearly impossible to transfer firearms at all.

Bloomberg’s Prohibitionist Side is Showing

Mike Bloomberg’s group, MAIG, tells the public that they just want to do things like mandate background checks for all gun transfers. That sounds harmless enough, but then their graphics department creates “scare graphics” to remind people that guns are everywhere and even they live near a gun shop!

BloombergDealerScareGraphic

It seems as though MAIG wants to promote commercial-only gun sales, yet then they turn around and use scary-looking graphics to remind anti-gun Americans that guns are lurking nearby. They try to tell us that we should only buy from gun shops, but they try to scare the low information voters with the number of FFLs in the country. If this graphic wasn’t meant to be scary, then it would say at the bottom something along the lines of, “So tell those Bible-thumping, second grade dropout rednecks to get their fat asses to their local gun shop when they want to pass that gun on to Toothless Billy Ray.”*

*While not actual language Bloomberg would say in public, it may represent what is actually going through his head.

Wearing The Other Side Out

There is something to be said for not wasting the energy of gun rights activists who only have enough enthusiasm for our issue for a handful of political activities. However, I do also think that there’s something to be said for annoying the heck out of anti-gun lawmakers at every turn. This is especially true of those who live in areas surrounded by anti-gun lawmakers.

Take Rep. Jim Moran. As Jim Geraghty notes on Twitter, his refusal to answer a question from a pro-rights woman in the audience of his anti-gun townhall almost makes it look like the idea of armed women defending themselves from abusive men hits a nerve with Moran or something. Here’s the video:

According to someone I know who attended, the audience was about 2/3 pro-gun. Based on the uproar in the audience supporting the woman, I’d say that sounds about right.

Rep. Moran isn’t a serious political target because he’s very safe (even though he put out a statement on the issue saying that it should just be considered an “embarrassing situation” for the victim – talk about trying to shame female violence victims!), but headaches like this townhall response make it less likely they will have public events on the issue in the future.

Gun Owners Swarm Hartford

Today is another day of lobbying for gun owners and the people who work for the gun industry in Connecticut. NSSF has some great photos of just floors and floors of the Capitol filled with gun owners visiting their lawmakers.

These lawmakers who wonder if just one or two anti-gun votes will be enough to make the issue go away need to be reminded that they will always have to answer for these votes at the polls, and the anti-gun groups will still attack them for not doing enough. As Rep. Jan Schakowsky (Illinois) tells us in this video, they want to bring back local gun bans and so much more after this initial flurry of bills.

I do have to admit that I love Rep. Schakowsky’s dedication to the issue – she’s so passionate, she can’t tell you the name of the gun control groups she’s is part of back home. She’s also so dedicated to a serious discussion of the issue, she won’t actually address the pesky little problem of McDonald in passing local gun prohibitions.

Mark Kelly, Gun Control Advocate, Buys Gun He Wants Banned

Mark Kelly, who proudly brags of (usually) buying guns at Wal-Mart, may find that going on tv to call for the renewal of a ban on so-called “assault weapons” gets him unwanted attention when he walks into a traditional gun store, buys a 1911–and an AR-15. He was recognized by witnesses, photographed by another customer filling out his 4473, and then questioned about why he would buy something he says he doesn’t want other people to have.

As his new Democratic PAC, Americans for Responsible Solutions, was questioned by media, Kelly suddenly issued a statement saying that he doesn’t plan to shoot or even keep the firearm. Instead, he claims to have bought it just so he could waste his money and turn it in to the police. Sssuuurrreee, he did.

I think that Kelly is going to find that his very public campaign to restrict our rights isn’t going to bode well if he plans on shopping anywhere other than big box stores where gun owners are unlikely to gather.

UPDATE: This morning I just remembered that I thought Arizona had some kind of law requiring guns taken by or given to police actually have to be sold back on the open market. Here’s a January article on that very issue, so Mark Kelly may have just bought a gun that will end up right back in the gun shop.

Anti-Gun Grassroots Investments

According to a tweet from Dave Kopel, the anti-gun groups are paying for services to call any supporter they can find and connect those people to the Colorado Senate while debate is in progress on the anti-gun bills.

Antigun lobby is autodialing voters and offering to connect them to StateSen offices to voice support for antigun bills in #coleg

— Dave Kopel (@davekopel) March 8, 2013

Fortunately for us in the pro-rights movement, we have the networks that exist for us to make these request of other gun owners in person. The other side has to pay for it. Of course, by relying on those call center professionals instead of actual grassroots, they are able to more easily target and time their phone calls exactly when they need them.

Targeting Training

Cam Edwards linked to this story complaining about the offer of firearms safety training from the NFL Players Association (sic) with the Sig Sauer Academy at the NRA Headquarters Range. An unnamed NFL general manager was outraged that the Association would offer classes to teach people who might own firearms how to use them safely and instead wanted to demand a “non-gun ownership course,” presumably to lecture these adults on why they should give up their constitutional rights.

The Association notes that estimate gun ownership rates among NFL players is estimate between 25%-75%, so they thought that offering a safety class for players was wise–especially since they note that they don’t advocate on the issue one way or the other.

I don’t think that the attacks on even firearm safety training are an accident. I think it’s very much part of the anti-gun culture war where these elites are horrified that people who learn that safely shooting is a whole lot of fun.

I believe Cam will be talking about this tonight on his Sportsman’s Channel show at 5pm Eastern. It will no doubt be interesting to hear more on this topic. I wonder if we’ll see more assaults on our efforts to train more new shooters, even if the anti-gun crowd used to preach safety.

Colorado Anti-Gun Bills Up in Senate

The Denver Post has live coverage of the debate & upcoming votes in the Colorado Senate on the package of anti-gun bills.

It’s interesting that they say the campus carry ban may be pulled today partially because of the national negative attention associated with the outrageous comments by lawmakers about rape victims. It’s not officially pulled yet, but several Democrats are trying to pressure the sponsor by telling the press that it’s dead. However, the sponsor is running around to the press saying that he’s got 10 hours to find votes.

The press is covering the various business angles to the issue, noting the recent threat by Outdoor Channel to pull production from the state. With 70% of voters listing the economy as the biggest issue influencing their vote going into the next election, Colorado lawmakers would do well to listen to the economic impact of gun control.

MAIG Lobbyist Loves Shooting “Assault Weapons” He Lobbies to Ban

We all know that the shooting sports are fun. It turns out that the lobbyists MAIG hires to promote gun bans know they are, too.

One of New York City Mayor Michael Bloombergâ€™s top gun-control lobbyists in Colorado appears to enjoy firing the very guns he is working to restrict.

Denver-based Headwaters Strategies lobbyist Adam Eichberg participated at a â€œwatermelon shootâ€ in September 2012 at the farm of Colorado state Sen. Greg Brophy (R.) where he fired a semi-automatic rifle with a high-capacity magazine.

A picture obtained by the Washington Free Beacon shows Eichberg smiling broadly as he shoulders a DPMS .308 rifle with a 20-round magazine.

Specifically, the lobbyist who appears absolutely overjoyed to be shooting off his 20 shots is calling for a ban on those same magazines. In fact, to top it off, the host of the shoot claims that Gov. John Hickenlooper begged for an invitation to come out and shoot “assault weapons” with those “high capacity” magazines he’s so eager to ban now that Bloomberg & Obama have promised political support.

The lawmaker who released the information about the shoot said he’s doing it because he has a problem with the way that they are calling for bans on mere citizens, while enjoying the same benefits of using these firearms in shooting sports:

Brophy said he is a friend of Eichberg, but could not let him or Hickenlooper slide.

â€œYou wonder if theyâ€™ve had a change of heart, or if theyâ€™re being hypocritical like we see in so many politicians where they donâ€™t want to live under the laws theyâ€™re pushing,â€ Brophy said.

Good for Sen. Brophy. I get that there’s business and there’s politics. But when you’re talking about restricting the right of average people who don’t benefit from police protection or Bloomberg’s billions making their way into your wallet, the typical divide between politics and personal goes out the window. These people are talking about abusing fundamental rights and putting lives at risk.