Category: Anti-Gun Folks

Back in the days when the Brady Campaign was actually relevant, I had a tradition of offering some advice to the vanquished and disenfranchised, to attempt to assuage the sorrow. Hate to say it, Mark, but Christmas ain’t coming early this year. That is OK. There is a remedy. When things are getting bad, there is really only one choice:

I’ll even rehash my original post on the topic, “It’s readily available, especially in DC, it’s cheap, and it will make the pain go away very quickly.  When it comes to assuaging your sorrow, there’s nothing in the world that beats tequila. I can speak from experience here.” Mark Glaze, send your intern to the liquor store, crack open a bottle, and get started. During times like this, never trust a tequila that isn’t sold by the liter.

UPDATE: And yes, sometimes I’ve had to take my own medicine. But that was a temporary setback. Is the ink from Obama’s pen even dry on that fix yet?

Jacob notes that NYAGV funding has been drying up. It’ll be very interesting to see the effect of the Obama gun control push on funding for anti-gun groups. Prior to this year, it’s been considered a losing issue for Democrats, but now that the President is behind it, and after Sandy Hook, it’s fashionable to be anti-gun again. Of course, MAIG is funding mostly by Bloomberg and taxpayers, so whatever happens to other groups doesn’t change the dynamics much. But I suspect other groups are doing better with money now. Having a President behind you on an issue is a huge deal.

Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) are joining the call to get Starbucks to ban guns. If they cave to these weasels, I’ll never drink their coffee again, and I think a lot of people would join ,me. Nonetheless, Senators control laws, and laws can destroy businesses. A lot of businesses are loathe to piss off lawmakers. But hey, remember that the anti-gunners say we’re the bullies.

The National Constitution Center, a false-flag organization that, under the banner of educating the public, is really part of the progressive project to destroy said document. They are proposing repealing the Second Amendment. The Inquirer is taking a poll. Feel free to vote.

Miguel points out Mom’s Demand Action To End Gun Ownership is in full freak-out mode about a North Carolina elementary school raising money by auctioning off an inline muzzle loader. All that rhetoric about the Second Amendment only applying to the firearm technology that existed in 1776? Yeah, I didn’t believe they were OK with that either. How can total prohibition not be their end goal? It’s apparent as the sun coming up in the morning. See the reaction on Facebook of their followers. Any hunter want to talk about how their guns are safe, and all these people want are some “common sense” restrictions? Are you blind?

UPDATE: I’m noting that the local media is picking up on this story. Very good. We want the message to get out to all the hunters who may be sitting on their butts or somewhat sympathetic to some gun controls to know what these people’s end game is. Their hunting guns are not safe. This is one of those cases of don’t interrupt your enemy when they are in the middle of making a mistake… except they’ve already made it. Apparently the raffle is doing quite well.

Bryan Strawster, who stands on the other side of Joan in this debate in Minnesota, has had “more than one hundred and thirty comments that I have submitted to Joan’s blog that have never been posted,” and indicates he’s willing to have a talk anytime in a fair an open forum. Weer’d Beard says much the same, and notes Joan’s response to my post:

Nope. There will be no discussion on that blog which regularly demeans me and calls me names. We will have the “discussion” on my blog if you want.

So disagreeing with Joan is equivalent to “demeans me and calls me names?” I’m pretty sure most people who have read me for a while know I am accepting and even welcome dissenting opinion. I might turn on the snark sometimes, but I’d like to think were all adults here.

In fact, Joan seems to have done an entire post in response to my original piece, which confirms she’s more desiring to speak at us than speak with us:

But the “gun guys” missed my point, as is often the case. I am always amazed that these folks pick out several of the smaller details about which to quibble but ignore the main point- the victims of the shootings.

No, we didn’t miss your point. Your post’s title said “We need to talk,” and implied that there wasn’t somehow a conversation already going on. So do you want to talk or don’t you?

So when the “gun guys” on my blog want me to come to their sites to have a “discussion” while calling me names and demeaning me on their sites, it’s really not too possible to have a “discussion” with them.

And we are supposed to ignore the regular demanding of us on her site? I could just as easily take offense to the things she says daily about the “law abiding gun owners,” and trying to paint us all as “fearful and paranoid” nut cases just a hair’s breath away from murdering loved ones or shooting up a coffee shop. But I understand spin, and the fact that both sides, in any public debate, engage in it.

When Joan says “I guess I struck a nerve,” that nerve is pretending to want a conversation when clearly she does not. What she wants is an echo chamber, and she’s welcome to it. She’s pretending to want a conversation but intent on allowing nothing of the sort. That is what some may classify as “disingenuous,” and perhaps even “hypocritical.” Maybe that’s the kind of “calling me names” or “demeaning me” Joan is speaking about here, but there’s an old saying that if the shoe fits ….

Joan Peterson, Brady Campaign Board Member and Minnesota gun control activist, laughably says:

We do need to have a serious discussion about what’s going on in our country concerning guns and gun permit holders.

I’m all for it. Let’s have a discussion. Does this mean she’ll stop censoring dissenting opinion in her blog comments? How can you have a “serious discussion” when you refuse to allow any kind of open discussion on your blog. I mean, I get it’s your sandbox, and you can do what you want, but let’s not pretend you want to have a serious discussion when people who try regularly find themselves silenced when they say things you don’t want to hear. When you are ready to have a serious discussion, we are certainly ready and willing. But that’s going to require everyone to be adults.

We need to talk about the wisdom of letting citizens carry guns around with them wherever they go. We need to talk about why it is dangerous to ramp up fear and paranoia amongst people who have been led to believe in myths and outright lies about our nation’s President.

OK, let’s talk. But we’ll have to do it here because your side won’t allow for open discussion in any forum you control. It’s part and parcel for the gun control movement. I haven’t seen any of the half-dozen or so anti-gun blogs that have existed that didn’t censor dissenting viewpoints, or disallow any kind of discussion outright.

That’s not the marker of a movement that has strong arguments and is self-confident. That’s a movement that knows it has no arguments. We have been having “serious discussion” about these topics. The problem is, you guys aren’t convincing anyone.

Sebastian sent me this press release from Moms Demand Action that says they plan to make their new efforts follow a back to school theme. They will promote a website that tries to convince anti-gun people not to allow their children onto the campuses of colleges that have to allow the presence of firearms. They are promoting CVS and Costco as stores that should be applauded for banning licensed concealed carry holders from their stores, and asking their members to buy their school supplies there.

But I think what I find truly offensive about their press release is the fact that they claim women really only have a moral authority to talk about guns if they have used their reproductive organs to procreate.

I might be one of those crazy feminists who believes that defining women only by their decisions on whether or not to reproduce or telling women that the only body part they should be depending on to make political decisions is a bad thing and a step backwards to times when a woman was judged largely on her status in the home and as a bearer of a man’s babies. But, you know, war on women–or something…

Oh, and their new corporate target is Staples since it has no company wide policy banning all guns. (There are apparently stores that do it, and they have a state policy in Arizona banning them, but they are allowed in some stores in some states. But nothing short of a nationwide gun ban is good enough for Moms Demand Action.)

Is there a middle ground on gun control? I often get annoyed with people who write about “middle ground”, because they often have a poor understanding of what that means. Where we stand right now is the much sought after “middle ground” on gun control, and we arrived here through struggle. But the article linked isn’t one of those simple minded articles on the topic, and makes a good argument that the other side overreached, while our side played the issue fairly pragmatically. I think that’s a correct assessment. But I’m also not sure they could have played it any other way.

The gun control proponents thought Sandy Hook was a bigger game changer than it really was. Within days of it happening it was pretty apparent from their cocky rhetoric many of them believed that happy days were once again upon them, and they would soon sweep us into the dustbin of history. What they weren’t expecting was such a strong mobilization by our grassroots. They got greedy in their demands, and we can be very very thankful for the overreach of our opponents. The prospect of far ranging bans on long guns, considerably more far broader than was achieved in 1994, were a big part of what helped mobilize the troops, and allowed us to stop everything outright.

Even the Toomey-Manchin compromise, which was at best a half-loaf for the other side, wasn’t destained to become the new middle ground on the issue. When people are paying attention, it’s easier to reach them with useful information about what the bills actually do. If the other side were only interested in more background checks, and were willing to give and take in order to get them, they’d be hard to defeat. But background checks are no more than flowery rhetoric to effectively carry a laundry list of other, more draconian regulation. But do the gun control folks have a choice, really?

Ultimately, it all boils down to bodies and dollars. Gun control activists and donors aren’t going to keep campaigning or writing checks to get more background checks. Their activists and donors don’t want to hear that gun bans are off the table. They don’t want to hear that registration is politically unpopular. The last thing they’d want to do is concede their most effective rhetorical tool for what to them is nothing. If background checks can’t be used to carry other restrictions, what good are they?