I don’t like throwing the “F” word around willy nilly, but I just don’t know what else to call this. Seriously? Exercise one constitutional right and lose another? No guns for those who’s viewpoints someone else finds offensive? I don’t want to live in the world that Coalition to Stop Gun Violence would apparently favor.
Category: Anti-Gun Folks
Religious Intolerance
NSSF on MAIG’s Real Goals
Writing on Opposing Views, NSSF’s Larry Keane highlights how the response to Wal-Mart selling guns in more stores from Boston Mayor & MAIG leader Tom Menino reveals that even when they get what they want, MAIG still isn’t happy as long as law abiding Americans are still allowed to purchase & own firearms.
We’re Winning
The Brady Campaign had a press conference the other day:
Things have to be pretty depressing at the Brady Campaign these days. I can sympathize. We’re cracking out the tequila here too guys, though our closing party has more people at it than this presser :)
Photoshop Of the Day
Go have a look over at Miguel’s. Trust me, it’s worth the click.
A Sea of Red
The Bradys are touting new state rankings for 2010, which includes convenient red/blue maps showing how badly they are losing most everywhere. Of course, we’re already well into 2011, but I’m not really going to blame those folks for phoning it in given the last time I looked at their Form 990s.
But I do I think we can do better. It’s like losing weight. Shed a few points here, a few points there. I look forward to turning Pennsylvania from blue to red over the next few years. Just looking over our score sheet, I think we could lose 3 points easily this session. That would at least move us south of Michigan on the Brady list. Pennsylvania has a grand total of 26 out of 100 points. Most of that we get from the ban on private transfer for handguns. The rest mostly comes from state dealer requirements.
What’s interesting is that Brady is hardly scoring carry laws anymore at all. In fact, if you take a look, they tend to rank current agenda items higher than issues they’ve already largely lost on.
We Have the Same Goal
Says Colin Goddard in and interview with Northern Arizona News:
Most people think if they send their child to a nice school in a nice area, then gun violence won’t affect them. But I was put into the most dangerous situation in my life in my French class, and I was almost killed.
I wanted to share my experience of gun violence and show other people to help them become educated and not allow gun violence to happen to you directly. I don’t want people to have to go down the same road that I did, with the same conclusion.
Except I want to achieve the goal by allowing people the choice of how best to defend themselves, including carrying a gun if they do so lawfully and responsibly. Colin wants to solve this problem by promoting the fantasy that rules and policies stop madmen. The loser who shot Colin passed several background checks, patiently got around Virginia’s gun rationing law which allows only one handgun a month, violated the Commonwealth of Virginia’s laws on carrying a firearm without a license, and finally violated Virginia Tech’s policy of forbidding firearms on campus. These laws utterly failed Colin Goddard, and his solution is to try it again, but with vigor. Sounds like a brilliant plan!
NRA Protests
I’ve seen a lot of misinformation put out about the protests against NRA’s annual meeting during the last few days which is a little odd since there were only a few pro-gun people who actually attended the protest to find out what was happening. It wasn’t something you could watch from the windows of the convention center or see from the sidewalks anywhere near the main hall. The actual protest & rally took place about a mile from the convention center, and almost every person there marched all the way back to the Westin across the street from the convention center.
I’ve seen some people try to claim there were only 30 people, and that the media is lying when they say around 200 people marched against NRA. There were easily 200 people, and I might even say closer to 250 or more. And almost every single one of them not only came out for the rally, but they marched for a mile in the heat and bright sun. (Seriously, I got sunburned and I wasn’t out there that long on the warmest day of the convention.) I took video which I’m currently editing. I interviewed quite a few protest attendees during their march, and I have to say that it was a very enlightening experience.
Before I get into the details of why people told me they were out there marching against NRA, I just wanted to set the record straight on the numbers game and who was involved. We had 71,139 members come through those convention hall doors. We don’t need to lie about the other side to claim victory in this case. I also know that someone somewhere mentioned that Ceasefire wasn’t involved, something that could lead people to believe that they have basically given up. That’s absolutely not the case. They were decked out in their organization t-shirts, and their director even addressed the rally. They are still around and planning to fight.
We win because of larger numbers, passionate grassroots activists, and people who are willing to turn up to the polls to vote for freedom. Trust me, the other side knows this. One key theme in Saturday’s rally was that the NRA wins because we get involved and the politicians listen to us. If we try to belittle the other side & their efforts to motivate their base, we risk missing the point where they could become relevant if we become complacent.
(Photo credit: Adam Z. who, along with his friend who is new to the issue, hopped in a cab with me up to the rally & marched down taking photos while I interviewed protesters.)
New Astroturfing Effort?
I found a media release for a not-so-new-but-new-to-me anti-gun blog. As is usually the practice, Reasoned DiscourseTM is in full effect. It’s run by the geriatric author of some anti-gun books. A quick Whois search shows it is registered to him, but what kind of hobby blogger puts out a release on PR Newswire. That’s not free. I smell astroturf.
“Snuffy” Pfleger Ordered to Pray
But not pray as leader of a congregation, rather on a forced suspension. He’s apparently been telling his boss that he doesn’t want to spend his career at one parish. So they privately discussed the possibility to lead a high school. And he went to the media and told the world that the Catholic Church was trying to remove him.
I’m not Catholic, but it seems they have given him some choices. Leave the ministry by your own decision. Pray and come back with an open heart ready to take their assignment – wherever it might be. Pray and come back to argue, effectively violating the terms he agreed to upon becoming a priest to accept their assignment and therefore again leaving the ministry by his own decision. (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong since, once again, I’m interpreting and not actually Catholic. I also don’t know enough Catholics to ask.)
Thirdpower notes that this action is because Michael Pfleger has been “an obnoxious turd.” To put it somewhat more politely, I’ll say that his ego appears to have gotten in the way of his heart.