Category: Anti-Gun Folks

Abby Spangler’s new term for gun parts she doesn’t like is “MASS MURDER MAGAZINES.” The caps are mandatory. MANDATORY.

UPDATE [Sebastian]: Now with a visual

The New Trajectory blog seems rather upset that our side organized to skew the results of his poll. Now imagine instead of just a minor bit of fun like that, it was calls to congressional offices instead? Now you see why we win. Where’s the gun control forums and blogs linking to send their people to counter what we did? There aren’t any, because there are no grassroots behind the gun control movement.

… doesn’t Time think that counts for anything? Not that I think the Tiger has changed his stripes, but I enjoy watching our opponents twist.

One thing that’s always shocked me is that, from what I’ve been able to tell, the vast majority of activists on the other side are people who are channeling their grief into the movement to ban or severely limit gun rights. We would seem to have the first of what no doubt will be many gun control activists created by this high profile tragedy.

It’s not uncommon, and certainly not limited to gun policy in this country. Many individuals who lost loved ones to lung cancer have gone on to become anti-smoking crusaders, for instance. Bitter and I both lost parents, hers arguably to smoking and poor lifestyle choices, and mine to breast cancer. This kind of channeling grief into activism is a difficult thing for both of us to understand, and I’ve pondered why some people channel their grief into public activism while others either don’t get the idea or are put off by it. I tend to have a negative view of channeling grief into activism, no matter what the activism, because when I went through it, I didn’t think it was the world’s duty to revolve around what I was going through, and what happened to my mother.

That’s one reason I’m not a huge breast cancer advocate, nor is Bitter an anti-smoking activist. Lots of diseases kill people, and breast cancer being a leading killer, will always get research money, mostly because big, evil pharma companies want to make money selling those treatments. Bitter, similarly, views her father’s poor lifestyle choices as just that, his choice.

In the aftermath of the tragedy in Arizona, I feel for the victims, but particularly the ones who don’t want their grief made into a public spectacle. If I were in that situation, I would deeply resent the news coverage, and attempts by groups to try to manipulate my circumstances for their own gain in the public arena. If I spoke out, it would only be to condemn them.

Thirdpower notices that some Illinois Senators are putting words in NSSF’s mouth and distorting the record on Andrew Traver. Not too surprising. They’ve always had to lie to win.

From Timothy Dolan, Chief of Police of Minneapolis Police Department:

Among the impediments are that we view gun ownership as an individual right and that gun violence has not yet become so unacceptable that we would impinge on those rights for the common good. In short, we accept a certain level of gun violence.

Yeah, I mean, heavens forbid we do something crazy like take the Bill of Rights seriously. To the Minneapolis Police Chief, the Bill of Rights is an inconvenience. What other amendments does the Chief think are “impediments?” How about the Fourth Amendment? Not being able to randomly search people for contraband certainly leads to a certain level of violence, wouldn’t you agree?

You’re damn right it’s an impediment. That’s the whole idea, jackass.

Hat tip to our favorite Brady Board member for the link, who laments that our goal is to dismantle gun laws. Why yes, it is. Because they are what you do instead of something.

From the Center for Public Integrity, which if you check their funding, receives money from the Joyce Foundation, who the article notes paid a grant to fund the article.