Anti-Gun Folks – Page 56 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Paranoia & Fear

I stumbled across a Facebook post gathering of Texas anti-gun activists who are concerned about the NRA annual meeting and exhibits taking place in Houston. As much as our opposition says that we’re the paranoid ones, their side has the woman speaking out who is convinced that the convention is full of people to fear who are “insane” and “nuts” simply for wanting to look at guns.

antigunfear

When challenged over why she would be fearful of law abiding NRA convention attendees, she spoke more of who she fears the most.

antigunfear2

I don’t know what’s worse here. On one hand there’s the paranoia that Sarah Palin or Ted Nugent is going to hurt her because she wants more gun control. On the other hand, there’s the overinflated sense of self-worth that comes with the assumption that Sarah Palin or Ted Nugent would even give enough of a damn about her existence to even want to hurt her.

The funny thing is that as much as she fears people on the right being around guns out of a sense that they’ll want to hurt others for not thinking like them, she’s the one who hopes that the FBI is keeping an eye on everyone who attends who might think differently than she does. So much for free thought or free association.

No Tragedy Unfit for Exploitation

Bloomberg and Menino capitalize on the Boston Bombing to promote their anti-gun political agenda. Quotes Glenn Reynolds saying:

Reynolds said people can be placed on terror watch lists without evidence, based on suspicions, saying, â€œIt hasnâ€™t been adjudicated … the government doesnâ€™t take its own list seriously enough to keep track of the people on it when foreign governments call attention to them. Why should we believe itâ€™s solid enough to take away peopleâ€™s rights?â€

â€œMenino and Bloomberg should be ashamed,â€ â€¨Reynolds added.

Apparently the serial number had been obliterated on the bomber’s pistol. That’s usually a pretty strong indication it was obtained from black market sources. Those guys don’t do background checks. The brothers also could have done the obliterating themselves. It should be noted that obliterating a gun’s serial number is a violation of federal law, and most states have laws against it as well. And they wonder why we say gun control doesn’t work? I’m sure everyone is comforted that they can add that charge onto the laundry list the remaining bomber will be facing.

The Billionaire Who Made Gun Control His Pet Issue

I do consider Mike Bloomberg’s money a serious threat to our Second Amendment rights. When it comes down to it, he can pay people to stand up against us and pay for ads to take up every single commercial break in key media markets. Like it or not, money talks and influences.

However, I was recently reminded about that other billionaire white old man who figured that if he could just throw enough money at the issue and start a new group with an innocent sounding name, then he could get more gun control. Anyone remember Andrew McKelvey and Americans for Gun Safety?

Back in 2001, AGS shot onto the scene by suddenly spending more than $1.8 million on lobbying Congress for gun control. This came after some federal spending in 2000, as well as a big state push focused on Colorado. Regardless, their 2001 reports showed more than seven times the spending levels of the Brady Campaign, VPC, and CSGV combined in the same year. (Remember, this was back when those groups actually had some money to spend.) Beyond their own internal lobbying expenses, they also hired two additional lobbying firms.

The following year, they dropped their federal lobbying expenditures to just under $1.4 million, but they were still the big lobbying players in the game in total spending and by expanding to hire three lobby shops to assist them.

In 2003, their lobbying efforts had fallen to less than $700,000, but that number was still more than any other group could afford. They cut back to only one additional lobbying firm to help out. A year later, at the height of the debate over semi-auto gun bans, they cut their spending to just over $275,000 and let the Brady Campaign take the lead in the gun control movement again. However, they did retain a new outside firm to assist. By 2005, they were no longer spending any money in the federal lobbying game and eventually saw their foundation folded into Third Way.

I’m not saying that we can get cocky and ignore the threats by Mike Bloomberg toward our fundamental rights. What McKelvey was willing to spend in their biggest year is less than what Bloomberg spent on just one Congressional special election to hold a Chicago seat. Bloomberg will not go away quietly. However, I thought that it should be noted that real grassroots action can compete against the big bucks of billionaires who want to tell you how to live your life.

Gun Owners Continue Owning Guns & Won’t Help Gun Control Groups or Assist in Promoting Partisan Agenda

That absurdly long headline sums up the contents of this UPI article.

I kid you not, there’s an entire piece running documenting the complaint of a single “Democratic political consultant” who supports gun control about how gun rights groups aren’t helping her to pass her partisan agenda.

“We have to balance the right to bear arms with the right to be safe. A gun giveaway right now inflames emotions and does not help us achieve that goal.”

How is this considered news? Would it make headlines that I did not assist the Brady Campaign in their effort to ban guns that I shoot? Is it now a major news story that I am not offering my services to Mike Bloomberg’s MAIG coalition to keep people who have no criminal record from owning guns? I mean I don’t do these things every day. I didn’t realize that it was somehow newsworthy.

I’d Say This Sums Up the Obama Presidency

Good at campaigning, bad at governing:

President Obama is a good campaigner. He won the big one twice and effectively made Republicans question their electoral existence. He also has shown once again, by not effectively managing his own agenda, that he has no appetite for governing.

Nothing proved that more than his approach to gun-control legislation …

It takes more than delivering a good speech from a teleprompter to get legislation done. In this late round with gun control, we’ve benefitted from a few things:

We’ve legitimately shifted the culture.
Barry doesn’t have the money to buy votes that Bill Clinton did.
Barry isn’t nearly as good at governing as Clinton was.

Why They Lost on Gun Control

This is an interesting analysis from someone on the other side. They make a lot of good points I would agree with,Â butÂ I think the root of their problem is there just isn’t much grassroots energy in gun control. If there was, there would be a stronger impetus to become well-organized. Despite what many people on their side of the issue believe, NRA is a manifestation of the hunting, shooting, and Second Amendment supporting community, rather than a top-down outfit. A great deal of the organizing and activism that went into defeat this latest round of gun control came from outside NRA Headquarters in Fairfax. NRA plays a role, for sure, but without the millions of people who back the organization, it would not be effective.

MAIG is the latest, and now the most effective group to join the fight for gun control, and it is a top-down organization funded almost exclusively by a super-rich mogul, rather than a manifestation of a bottom-up movement.Â It remains to be seen how effective the new left, represented by MoveOn and OFA, will be at promoting gun control. Gun control has always been a movement of a few elites on the top, who market gun control to the media and political class. What grassroots activists they do have are often people channeling unresolved grief, and who often lack great organizational or political skills. There are simply far more people are involved in the shooting sports, or who own or carry guns for self-defense than there are people who are truly motivated to discourage or prevent that.

Live Anti-NRA Protest

Watch as a small group of dirty hippies holds a K-street protest against lobby shops NRA uses. I think they even have a drum. One of them just said “You know, even if I’m on the same side as Bloomberg on this issue, F**k Bloomberg,” while flipping the bird. Even if his allies think he’s insufferable. I’ve seen more people at hanging out at my club on an afternoon.

UPDATE: Protest seems to be over now. They are headed to Arizona Senator Jeff Flake’s office. I hope for his staff’s sake they shower first.

UPDATE: Back on now. Looks like they are headed over to Flake’s office.

UPDATE: They want everyone to know “We’re regular people.” Well, so are we, and there are a lot more of us than there are of you.

UPDATE: Just heard one of them say “It would just be easier to beat the shit out of someone,” in regards to someone in a car nearly hitting them because they are crossing streets without paying attention. Why are anti-gun activists so violent?

Bloomberg Targeting Mark Pryor?

Seems they are considering it, according to Salon. What purpose would this serve? Do they think they can get a better deal on guns from an Arkansas Republican? The fact is Toomey was about the only Senator they could conceivably ~~hoodwink~~ scare into accepting a deal. Helping Toomey ruin his relationship with an important GOP voting block could pave the way for an anti-gun Democrat. That was a huge victory for Bloomberg.

Bloomberg is not going to be able to do a thing to Pryor on guns, short of replacing him with a pro-gun Republican. Same goes for other red state Democrats. They voted the way they did because the consensus on guns in Arkansas is vastly different than it is in New York City. Bloomberg will be running campaign ads for Pryor if he buys up Arkansas airtime telling everyone Mark Pryor hates gun control.

We’re in Trouble Now

Bloomberg is recruiting the best cartoonists in the world for the cause of gun control. Oh, if only to be so rich as to be able to impose my preferences on the rest of the world. It must be nice for billionaires. Of course, if I had that kind of money, I’d be spending it on a law degree, and then helping the underprivileged sue the government pro-bono. I think that would be more meaningful.

2014 is Here Now

If you’re like me, you may be seeing Gabby Giffords’s face on nearly advertising-supported website asking for money to fund her PAC. We can also find Joe Scarborough calling on the president to covertly work with a billionaire to buy local elections where the little people don’t vote the way the elites think they should. Then there’s the Brady Campaign telling a political outlet that they will start using their PAC to get involved in elections.

One of these sentences is not like the other.

If you guessed it was the Brady Campaign turning into a campaign operation, give yourself a pat on the back and maybe a Snickers bar for good measure.

On the senators who voted against the bill, Brady Campaign President Dan Gross told PI: â€œWe’re watching them and we’re holding them accountable.â€ He added, â€œWe’re flooding calls from the American public into their offices.” Brady said the group would look at using its PAC against members of Congress who voted against yesterdayâ€™s pro-gun-control amendment. â€œWe are definitely going to be looking at what we can do on an electoral level,â€ Gross said.

Well, Dan, let’s help you look at what you can do on an electoral level based on the most recent data you filed with the .gov.

BradyPACDonations

Even after Newtown and knowing they would likely need to launch an electoral fight, the Brady Campaign raised a big fat nothing for their PAC in all of 2012. Either Dan Gross is lying to the media about his intentions or he’s grossly incompetent in understanding that their current cash on hand in the PAC isn’t even enough to make one maxed out donation and pay all of the fees they appear to have in maintaining the account annually.

Now, I realize that they may be able to raise money for the PAC this year, so we’ll keep an eye on it. Regardless, I feel like Politico left out key context to the story of their potential involvement by deliberately ignoring the fact that they have raised less than $37k since 2006 (when Paul Helmke took over) and raised absolutely no PAC dollars under the current leadership.