The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
It was released less than half an hour ago. Just out of curiosity, I opened it and did a search for two words: inaccurate and false. In case you’re now curious about my findings, the two returned a combined 178 hits.
That means they appear about every 2.5 pages.
Doesn’t Obama promise us the move transparent Administration ever? Somehow, I don’t think that quite works out.
Sorry for the lack of posts this morning, folks. We spent our morning preparing for and afternoon attending the Constitution Day Fair at Bucks County Community College. They invited us to set up a table as NRA volunteers, alongside many other groups such as Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Lower Bucks Young Democrats, Bucks County Republican Party, Libertarian Party, Young Americans for Liberty, NORML, and even Occupy Wall Street. (I know I missed a couple of groups, but that just shows the range of organizations invited.)
Not that many people came by the fair, but a few folks came in to check everything out. Interestingly, any group that was either right-of-center or focused on talking about the Constitution had candy to give away. The Democrats and groups that one would normally consider left-of-center didn’t want to share candy with attendees.
We did speak with a guy who said he was writing an article for the school paper. He was mostly interested in confirming what he had heard that NRA endorses both Democrats and Republicans. We talked a bit about that history, and he took notes on the fact that NRA sends questionnaires to new candidates and grades incumbents based on voting records and questionnaires.
Ironically, our visit from a guy who said, “I support the Second Amendment, but…” was actually a Republican. He wants to ban semi-automatics. I assumed he was confused, but he did comprehend that they only fired once with each pull of the trigger. We didn’t pursue the discussion too much beyond that because I don’t know how far you can bring a person who wants a Second Amendment that allows banning guns people actually own. To make it even weirder, he said his dad is an NRA member. While this guy did know that one round is fired with each pull of the trigger, he was convinced that he could do some kind of spray shooting without aiming and hit moving targets even if he didn’t really know much about shooting guns. I guess it just goes to show you that you need to make sure you kids really understand how firearms work.
We also had a visit from a woman who wanted to know where she could get shooting lessons because she views learning the basic handling of firearms to be a safety issue – just like learning how to swim or any other personal safety concern. We, along with one of the Young Americans for Liberty guys, gave her several recommendations.
Perhaps some of the most interesting conversations overheard during the event when our table didn’t have visitors came from the Democratic representatives. Apparently, George Bush is running for President this year. Oh, wait, he’s not? You would not have known that to listen to their pitch. At this point, I wonder if some future history books will actually have mistakes listing either the election of 2008 or 2012 as Obama versus Bush.
As you can see in the pictures, we gave out Twizzlers. Given the pretty sparse crowd of visitors, they were actually pretty popular. College students love candy, and at less than $8 for 180 Twizzlers, it was a cheap and easy way to get people over to the table. A few of the students even picked up the bumper stickers.
We had several students and a couple of the staff come up just to thank us for coming out and representing the Second Amendment at an event like that. In fact, they now have interest in doing more events that feature policy debates and representatives of different sides of political issues.
While this event wasn’t huge for getting lots of new volunteers signed up, it was absolutely useful in reminding folks that the “gun lobby” is people. It’s 4 million NRA members who care about our rights. It’s even college students today who wanted to talk guns, but are still saving up for an NRA Life membership. We are real, and we do vote. We’re not representatives of some gun company as the anti-gun groups want to argue. We’re just average folks who care about Constitutional rights.
It would appear that MAIG has come to realize that having a membership with a higher rate of criminal activity than concealed carry holders is an argument that actually sticks. When they speak, they become the spokesmen for criminals calling for disarming the law-abiding.
When gun bloggers first started pointing out how many criminal mayors they had – mostly around the time one was under a high profile arrest for gun crimes – MAIG kept their names on their website with pride. I guess they felt they needed every supporter they could find, even if the supporter was headed to prison.
Today’s arrest of Trenton’s mayor had MAIG scrubbing their website of their member within a couple of hours. In fact, I saw the post on Days of Our Trailers, but initially couldn’t figure out if Thirdpower was simply assuming that because the guy was a big-city mayor in NJ that he was a member since the MAIG site had him gone. However, a simple search of the mayor’s name and MAIG turned up the evidence.
The only reason that MAIG would want to act quickly on these matters is because they have found that it does actually undermine their credibility to have Bloomberg allying himself with criminals in calling for gun control. I guess MAIG is hoping that by erasing evidence of any relationship within the group, they can minimize the impact.
I’m curious if anyone has identified the two men and one woman interviewed by the Daily Show who say that gun owners aren’t allowed in the Democratic Party – nor are business owners or white men. I’d be curious to know what state they each call home.
If you weren’t watching the RNC speeches last night, you really missed out. The women knocked every single ball out of the park. The men, save Paul Ryan who brought a little fire to the floor, largely fell flat. Tim Pawlenty’s speech wasn’t a roaring excitement, but he got in one hell of a dig against Obama, noting that many people fail in their first jobs. The humor in the audience reaction was how it took them a second to realize what he said, and then they cracked up.
However, there were a few moments the audience absolutely roared in applause and cheers. One was when Condi talked about how she could grow up in Jim Crow-era Alabama with parents who told her she could be anything she wanted to be – even president – and that the same little girl would go on to become Secretary of State. Another came from New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez when she talked about how hard her parents worked to start a small business – a security business – that she also worked at as a teenager. While this video trims the response by the crowd, you do get the hint that the floor went nuts for her talk of knowing how to defend herself.
The video also cuts off her follow-up line – that the gun weighed about as much as she did. For all the talk about platforms in recent days, those don’t really matter much. The reaction to this kind of comment reflects far more about the motivation of the party members. It’s not about what a few select people who we don’t elect pick out for a party platform, it’s about actual elected officials and candidates seeking our votes representing what people really believe. And we already know that the American people really do believe in the right to self-defense, even with a firearm.
I might add, for the GOP portrayed as the uptight do-gooders, her swear line in prime time tv hours got huge applause. Continue reading “Women & Guns”
This is why I’m not opposed to coalitions for advancing a political agenda. At the RNC, GOProud had one helluva party from the descriptions and pictures. And they found that there are plenty of true Republican believers in the quote attributed to Ronald Reagan that someone who is with you on 80% of your issues isn’t your enemy.
I love the shirt logos – Freedom is Fabulous. Why? Because freedom is fabulous.
And to tie this into the main theme of the blog, there are allies on the gun issue who also stand up for GOProud.
Go-go boys and ladies wearing “freedom is fabulous” T-shirts and disco ball party favors were features of the party, which was attended by conservative players Dana Loesch, S.E. Cupp, Grover Norquist, Will Cain, Margaret Hoover, Roger Stone, Roger Simon and Richard Grenell, along with more than 600 others — including more than a handful of members of the media covering the party. …
In addition to De Pasquale, [David] Keane had signed on as a supporter of the party.
In that list are the NRA President and an NRA board member. That’s good news.
I also think GOProud’s presence in Tampa can serve as a learning opportunity for gun rights activists. When I saw this picture of the head of GOProud, I really only thought one thing: Who would want to hang out with the angry people? There’s not a single anti-gay protester in that shot who looks like they are happy in life or like they are excited to be out standing up for their cause. At the same time, the guy who is being insulted and called a singular threat to national security looks like he’s having a great time. The lesson? People are attracted to those who look like they are having fun and enjoying life. The way to get someone to the range so they can become your local pro-gun ally isn’t by being the grumpy dude bitching about everything that’s horrible in this country.
Provided that a hurricane doesn’t interrupt the GOP convention, they have invited shooting Olympic record holder Kim Rhode to speak at the event. In fact, I’m very impressed by the fact that the GOP does not shy away from mentioning her shooting records in her biography. There’s no sugarcoating it, they are straight up talking about Rhode’s accomplishments as a serious competitive shooter. It’s a context that doesn’t threaten people, but makes clear that shooting is an American pastime.
Kim Rhode, the co-host of the Outdoor Channel’s Step Outside program, is the only American Olympian to win five medals in an individual event in five consecutive Olympic Games. She’s the most successful female shooter at the Olympics, the only triple Olympic Champion and the only woman to have won two gold medals for Double Trap. Most recently, she brought home gold in skeet shooting at the 2012 Summer Games in London, equaling the world record of 99 out of 100 clays. When double trap was eliminated from the Olympic Games, she set a new world record in skeet at the 2007 world cup competitions, going on to win the silver at the 2008 Summer Olympics in women’s skeet.
Also, of the 11 Olympians attending, she’s one of three selected to speak.
I think the best summary of the Missouri Senate campaign that I’ve seen so far starts with this:
Here’s the thing, if you’re running for the Senate and you have to cut a spot that assures voters that you think rape is bad and you now know that women don’t have a goalie in their vajay-jay to stop sperm in case of “legitimate rape”, you’re in big trouble.
I didn’t think I’d live long enough to see an ad worse than “I’m not a witch” but I was wrong. I regret the error.
I appreciate that the post highlights that this isn’t just about the risk of repeal of Obamacare, losing this seat impacts judicial nominations.
I’ll be honest, as a woman, if I saw Todd Akin’s name on a ballot, I don’t know if I could cast a vote for him even though I realize I would need to strategically in order to see my preferred political outcomes that have nothing to do with abortion become reality. When someone is so out-of-touch that they can’t take a serious look at the issue of a major criminal act, then I don’t believe they should be serving in government. When they are so unbelievably misinformed that they believe there’s some magic switch women can flip when they don’t want to become impregnated during a specific sexual act, well, they shouldn’t have any role in defining education or health policies.
As a female voter, I’m constantly hit with ads telling me that policies dictated by anatomy are ALWAYS AT RISK and that this election will be the one to see my rights DIRECTLY BANNED FOREVER. They stop only slightly short of saying that if a Republican is elected in this country, it will turn into a nation not unlike The Handmaid’s Tale. Needless to say, I tune it out.
Even with that filter in place, Akin’s remarks are simply inexcusable. The things he said aren’t even said in polite company, mostly because polite company probably wouldn’t be able to keep from making faces at the sheer stupidity of his understanding of how reproduction works even if they were left in stunned silence at his dismissal of the impacts of rape.
I truly hope that the women of Missouri get a better candidate later today. With someone like him on the ballot, there can’t be a true debate over the actual issues that women – whether on the right, left, or in the center – might want to discuss when it comes to healthcare and access to services. There won’t be room to make the argument that perhaps taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill to fund everyone’s favorite birth control because with Akin on the ballot, he might just assume that women don’t really need birth control at all since we can apparently just “shut that whole thing down.” It really doesn’t matter what he says now, those will be the arguments that people will hear. And really, is that unbelievable that those arguments might stick with a few folks? It’s less unbelievable than the idea that a 65-year-old father doesn’t know about the birds and bees and wants to make public policy on his misinformation.
UPDATE: I think this is an excellent post from Clayton Cramer on why Akin’s statement just isn’t backed up by data no matter what he claimed as his source. I guess what really disturbs me about that situation is that it’s not just a fundamental knowledge issue, it shows that he’s not remotely serious about his beliefs in order to defend them, and he doesn’t do any basic research at all before taking a position on public policy. Clayton sums it up best:
This is one of the reasons that I try to emphasize to ideologues of all stripes that if you go looking for evidence that backs your position, you will find evidence that backs your position, and you will miss the evidence that doesn’t.
Go read his entire post.
When most people think of the voter fraud issue in Pennsylvania, they think of Philadelphia. With turnout running over 100% in some precincts in local-only election primaries, it’s no wonder the city has become the face of election fraud in the Commonwealth. So, outside of statewide races, it’s not something that most people would think impacts races with pro-gun votes since pro-gun candidates don’t run serious, competitive campaigns in Philadelphia.
However, there’s some kind of likely election law violation going on in Berks County which is home to portions of the districts of three pro-gun Congressional incumbents, two of whom are in somewhat competitive races.
An investigation into an unspecified violation of state election law began Thursday at the direction of the Berks County Board of Elections.
They note that the three Commissioners on the board aren’t talking, and the Democrat had to sit out of the vote on whether or not to investigate because of a conflict of interest. The District Attorney says that it’s best to have the outside investigator, and they claim that releasing any information about the investigation whatsoever will jeopardize it.
I have no idea whether the Berks County case is anything that could possibly be influenced by the new law this year over voter ID requirements, but preplanned violations of that new election law by both election officials and voters are have already been announced around the suburbs of Philadelphia.
Christopher L. Broach, a Democratic inspector of elections in the tiny borough of Colwyn, said he would not ask voters to prove who they are on Election Day. …
Though Broach is the only official publicly taking such a stance, Philadelphia’s nonpartisan Committee of Seventy received a call from a Pittsburgh poll worker saying he, too, plans not to demand photo ID from voters he knows. The law has set off defiant talk among voters as well, with a few vowing to vote without the required forms of photo ID.
More:
An echo could be heard in Lower Merion Township. “No, I will not enforce it,” said Joe Breidenstein, 55, a Democratic judge of elections in Ardmore.
Part of Ardmore is in a competitive district for a key pro-Second Amendment vote in Congress. So this isn’t just an urban problem for the typically corruption-plagued city of Philadelphia. Violating election laws is now a planned method of potentially swaying the outcomes of elections in the suburban areas in ways that can cost us valuable seats in Congress.
The Independence Institute hold an annual event to celebrate adulthood and freedom. As the organization’s president, Jon Caldara, says, “Freedom isn’t allowing people to do things that you approve of, freedom is about protecting people’s right to do things you find distasteful.”
Dave Kopel speaks to the crowd around the 5:45 mark, and he starts off with some familiar statistics and stories about the Illegal Mayors Against Guns working with Mike Bloomberg for gun control. The best part is that these facts aired on C-SPAN.
He mentioned the number of these gun control advocates who have been convicted or under indictment or investigation, as well as the story we broke about the man who Bloomberg claimed supported his agenda more than a year after the mayor died.
Kopel also discusses the culture of violence promoted by Hollywood and spending on corporate welfare instead of issues that really can impact quality of life and public safety for the entire community.
