Category: Anti-Gun Folks

Coalition to Stop Gun Violence is missing on the point on the proliferation of 3D printing and Computer Aided Manufacturing equipment like CNC milling machines. It’s becoming ubiquitous technology. Mr. Completely, who lives on an island in the Puget Sound, managed to find himself a large and capable specimen. My friend Jason’s CNC mill is desktop sized, as is his 3D printer. Ladd’s ridiculous notion that those of us interested in these machines are “traitors to our government” aside, the inescapable conclusion has to be that if these technologies are available to us, they’re equally available to criminals. The point is, a world where guns can be rolled out on CNC machines and 3D printers that fit on a workbench is a world you will not be able to effectively ban guns. Pretty clearly that possibility is not one Ladd Everett wants to face, being a true believer and all, but it’s the truth. Gun control is increasingly being rendered an obsolete and outmoded concept by technological progress.

You almost have to feel sorry for Dennis Henigan sometimes. To spend your entire life working on an issue only to watch it circling the bowl the past few years can’t be easy on anyone. It also has to be difficult to try to justify something I have to believe Henigan knows was wrong, but since the Administration’s heart was in the right place, so maybe that’s all the matters in Henigan’s mind. Otherwise, to try to carry the Obama Administration’s dirty water, after everything he hasn’t done for them, just makes you a tool.

I have a difficult time following Henigan’s logic, suggesting that “grievously weak federal gun laws” are to blame here. If our government is going to sanction criminal trafficking of firearms, what federal law is going to make a bit of difference? Henigan suggests,

If dealer sales of assault rifles were restricted, as they were for 10 years until 2004 when Congress and President Bush allowed the federal assault weapon ban to expire, it would not be necessary for law enforcement to track down the guns after they leave the gun shop.

Except in most cases the weapon an issue here is the Krinkov pistol, which were readily available during the ban, because they did not qualify as assault weapons under the federal definition, and most certainly aren’t rifles by any definition. Henigan further asserts,

The Attorney General’s most severe critics even oppose the new ATF rule requiring real-time reporting to ATF when border state dealers sell multiple semi-automatic rifles to a single buyer, a red flag for trafficking. The same members of Congress who denounce ATF for failing to stop trafficked guns from crossing the border into Mexico also oppose a rule that would give ATF the information it needs to arrest the traffickers and interdict the guns, before they get to the border.

Henigan has to be insane if he truly believes the nonsense he’s spewing here. The multiple sales requires accomplishes nothing in terms of interdicting guns. A piece of paper sent to a bureaucrat at ATF is not going to physically intervene and prevent that weapon from being illegally trafficked over the border, or illegally sold to a criminal in this country. Data is worthless if it is not acted on, and to act on it requires significant resources.

Even accepting Henigan’s position that this was a case of “flawed enforcement tactics,” one has to wonder how he expects, given that ATF lacks “the leadership and authority it needs to do its job well,” and was thus unable to track the weapons the dealers were voluntarily telling them about, how it’s going to cope when it gets hundreds of times that data, with the criminal transactions drowning in the noise of the legal ones. Dennis doesn’t mention that in his simplistic and naive analysis.

But the Administration certainly went through a lot of trouble to try to drive up the trace numbers in an attempt to justify bigger budgets and more laws and regulations, so I suppose carrying its water is the least Dennis Henigan can do.

Here’s some excerpts from Dudley Brown’s latest e-mail alert:

Subject: Anti-gun bill getting worse!

I can see suggesting letting the feds involve themselves in concealed carry is a bad idea, but let’s not get ridiculous here. Unfortunately, ridiculous is where this is headed:

As I type this, all-out war has been declared on your gun rights in Washington, D.C. by the House Judiciary Committee. Your National Association for Gun Rights has been warning you that H.R. 822 is a Trojan Horse.

Those bastards! Wanting to enforce the Second Amendment against the states using their 14th Amendment powers. If this is all out war, bring it on. I’m also incredulous at the implication this is a Trojan Horse. The fact that HR822 could, perhaps later, open the door to more serious federal involvement in an issue we might come to later to regret is arguable. But you can’t, out of one side of your mouth, argue that the people pushing HR822 are “well-meaning” and out of the other side suggest they are foisting a Trojan Horse on gun owners. Perhaps Brown is only guilty of using poor metaphors here, but Trojan Horse has implications as to the intentions of the people offering the gift.

Just today, Republicans helped pass an amendment that orders the Feds to investigate the “safety” of mail-in CCW permits from states like Florida, Utah and New Hampshire.

This is a common tactic to pick up more votes. Some softy gets an idea in his head that he’d like to have more information about something or another and you get things like this. I would also point out that our opponents have done quite a bit of this, where they commission studies that are sent to committees intended to reach a fore drawn conclusion. Turnabout is fair play, and that’s all I have to say about this particular amendment.

So-called “pro-gun” Republicans even KILLED an amendment that would have allowed permit holders to defend themselves in the District of Columbia, one of the most dangerous cities in the country.

A more aggressive bill was tried before and died in the Senate. We’re going to want something that can pass. Every time you tweak a bill, you’re either going to pick up or lose votes. Passing legislation is about holding on to a majority needed to get a bill passed, and that’s going to mean HR822 needs to be less aggressive than its predecessors. You can always go back later and tweak with a separate bill when everyone realizes the sky hasn’t fallen. This isn’t about the Republicans on the committee being anti-gun, it’s about keeping the bill in a form that’s more likely to see passage.

Brown continues on to speak of the many anti-gun amendments which were defeated in Committee markup, which was entirely predictable. He suggests that the Senate has a whole host of anti-gun Amendments they would like to tack on as well, so that’s where the bill is going to certainly become anti-gun. I think that’s unlikely, but it’s worth noting that the Senate can’t pass a bill unilaterally. If we can’t get a clean bill out of the Senate, the bill can die right there.

His letter ends with a plea to call judiciary members and get them to oppose HR822, which puts Dudley on the same side as groups such as MAIG, the Brady Campaign, CSGV, and the Violence Policy Center, as well as big city police chiefs, and your usual Joyce funded puppets.

As I said, I don’t bemoan anyone who’s nervous about or opposed to federal intervention in this area. Before Heller and McDonald, and before we had a court strategy, I agreed with those folks. But Brown is way out of line here with his rhetoric and tactics, which have gone way beyond the line of good faith disagreement. He has joined with our opponents in word and in deed.

If you’re “Fundraising Success Magazine,” and you’re interviewing Josh Horwitz, unless the topic is called “How to Suckle at the Teat of a Large Foundational Donor,” you must be really hard up for material. But nonetheless, they talk to Josh at some length.

Quickly in the interview, Horwitz dives right into his strengths, mentioning “the Ed Fund is an incredibly lean organization,” and that, “[w]e were able to cut overhead expenses drastically over the past few years, and we successfully run a wide range of violence prevention programs on a tight budget.” He naturally does not reveal that some of the “violence prevention programs” involve berating second stringers in the gun rights movement, and then going so far overboard that they were suspended by Twitter for violations of terms of use. But either way, I’m sure they saved a lot of money during the period their Twitter account was suspended, so it does fit with the narrative, I suppose.

The folks at CSGV are at least in good spirits right? Well, maybe not so much. “[T]he gun violence prevention issue can be demoralizing,” Horwitz notes, though he is clearly proud of his, “strong social-media presence that is growing every day.” Fortunately for him, the readers of Fundraising Success Magazine will never know that Josh’s cadre of New Media allies are among the best lunatics and whakjobs the left has to offer, most of whom are likely too busy pooping in Zuccotti Park to think much about donating to EFSGV or CSGV.

One advantage of not having much in the way of real donors, is that you can give them personal attention,. “[W]e have had some significant success in inspiring longtime direct-mail donors to increase their giving through this more individualized approach. Personal attention to donors and connecting with prospective donors in person or on the phone has been the key.” So NRA members, when was the last time you got a call from Wayne for sending a few bucks NRA’s way? Any SAF members get a call from Alan Gottlieb lately?

And of course, you can’t talk to Josh Horwitz without at least one of their standard propaganda bits slipping out. “Another fundraising difficulty is the obvious resource disparity between the gun violence prevention movement and the industry-funded gun lobby.” NRA doesn’t have this “personal touch” philosophy when it comes to fundraising, because there’s no way they could do this over millions of members, which accounts for the vast majority of their fundraising. But Josh has to be the David fighting the Goliath. It’s probably a lot easier to sleep at night if you think you’re fighting evil corporations, rather than merely being a sour busybody inserting your nose into the personal business of millions and millions of fellow Americans.

For those of you familiar with the Wikipedia culture, it occurs to me that MAIG’s Wikipedia page is pretty poor. Wikipedia pages are supposed to be factual, not promotion material for the organization. Some changes I would suggest:

• It should be clear they are an organization that advocates gun control. Don’t let them get away with the “common sense” bullshit. What they propose is little different from the Brady Campaign or the other gun control groups.
• Is should have a criticism section, rather than just “Opposition from the NRA,” with NRA’s criticism included in that, but I’d also mention some of their members criminal tendencies.
• When it comes to what they advocate for, there should be a good mix of what they say, what we say, and what the facts are. They are not entitled to their own sets of facts. Be sure to find citations. For instance, it should be more clearly noted that police groups, including the ATF, oppose repealing Tiahrt.

Don’t let them turn their Wikipedia page into a propaganda tool. Wikipedia actually frowns on that, and if you keep things balanced, and factual, you can win. At the least, it forces MAIG to spend resources fighting with us and Wikipedia. Even if HR822 ultimately fails (given the makeup of the Senate, and the occupant of the White House, it probably will in this Congress), it’s forcing our opponents to spend significant resources. The more fronts we can engage them on, the less resources they will have when the final push comes. This is a clash of wills, and ours must be stronger for longer if we’re going to prevail in the end.

Now there’s a petition at the White House site calling for the defeat of HR822, started by Philadelphia’s police chief, and it’s way ahead of ours. Nearly all the signatures are from California, which makes me wonder if the this was put out to a very large list. I questioned whether the Brady Campaign can have that kind of impact, which makes me wonder if OFA is using some of their reach. This was launched October 11th, and it already has double our number of signatures? I’ve been around this issue a long time, and I’ve never seen our opponents display that kind of grassroots power.

I’m not saying the signatures are necessarily bogus, but someone is a lot more powerful and with more reach than our opponents is either promoting this, or someone is playing games. Either way, we have to get our game on and counter this.

UPDATE: Judging from this, it looks like MAIG is behind this drive, and they are pulling out all the stops. This is quite good for us, because it means that our opponents have pulled out all the stops just to deal with our little guerrilla petition drive. It’s worth noting that NRA won’t throw its weight behind a White House push until there’s a bill on his desk. Surely we can think of other ways to spread our opponents thin as the debate on HR822 really heats up?

BTW, if this is all MAIG driven activity, that’s further evidence they are the real deal, and will be supplanting the hecklers at Brady, CSGV and VPC as our primary, and most dangerous opponents.

UPDATE: At the rate new signatures are being added, I’m really curious what method is being used to promote this. A quick search of the Internet only reveals the letter from Michael Nutter. Maybe they are hitting up people at the anti-gun range, and asking them to sign.

UPDATE: Bitter thinks it might be they are using e-mail lists, perhaps ones they rented or purchased. If you see one of these in the wild, please forward it to me.