Anti-Gun Folks – Page 62 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Gun Bloggers and the Congressional Record

I think Thirdpower may be the only gun blogger (who isn’t Hardy or Kopel) that has ended up in the Congressional Record. Josh Horwitz of the thoroughly extreme Coalition to Prevent ~~Gun Ownership~~ Gun Violence decided to include him in his testimony before the Senate. Josh must really be frightened by Thirdpower, and I can understand why, given howÂ intimidating he can be.Â That’s the face that launched a thousand threepers right there. He’s just itching to overthrow some legitimate democratic government, according to CSGV, when he’s not busy being a nerd.

Like Thirdpower, CSGV has attacked me in the past for extremism as well, as surely evidenced by my drone program, which might seem like just another nerdy hobby, considering my day job as a mild mannered IT professional. But such a hobby obviously has some kind of Dr. Evil, insurrectionist purpose. Clearly we must be stopped, and only CSGV is up to the task.

This is how utterly ridiculous Josh Horwitz and CSGV are. It’s amazing to me anyone takes them seriously enough to invite them to testify before the Senate. This would be like having me or Thirdpower testify before the Senate as credible representatives. By sniping at gun bloggers in serious testimony, Horwitz has elevated us to his level. Unfortunately, that level is quite a bit lower than I think many of us have aspirations for.

What the Media Really Thinks of Gun Owners

Locally, there’s a new group that has popped up to defend gun rights. The media is aghast, and they resent being reminded that 1 in 17 of voting age adults in the county have concealed carry permits – a number from before the rush on permits post-Aurora and Newtown.

â€œRegistration? Does it include the criminals?â€ [a local pro-gun State Rep.] asked, repeating a very tired argument. He went on, concluding: â€œFirearms protect children, wives and husbands.â€

What about the dog? Should we shoot people who threaten the family pet?

Yes, the paper just called the argument that we should punish criminals “tiring” before comparing the value of the lives of your spouse and children to that of a dog. Let that sink in. They think the concept of defending the lives of your children is as worthless as defending a house cat. Why? Because you own guns.

But, the unsigned editorial doesn’t stop there. No, they have to make gun owners out to be dangerous creatures.

Said one of the â€œconcerned gun ownersâ€ of possible government intervention, â€œThey have a hunger to control us â€” unless we stop them.â€

God help us.

Clearly, divine intervention is needed. Because gun owners couldn’t possibly be talking about stopping power-hungry politicians through civic engagement, public education efforts, citizen lobbying, and election volunteer activities.

This doesn’t even get into their policy discussion. They promote Obama’s gun ban agenda as “modest,” and then they try to claim that full gun registration isn’t really controversial at all. They think that a ban on firearms commonly owned and used by thousands of gun owners in the region is just not big deal and shouldn’t be challenged. They do make clear that we’re “entitled” to have opinions, but they are outraged that gun owners dare organize to express them.

Bloomberg Mayor in Hot Water Over Personal Security Spending

The Pittsburgh mayor who has signed letters to Congress opposing concealed carry for mere citizens has been spending big taxpayer bucks to pay police officers to escort him everywhere – including nightclubs where he’s busy making out with young women.

A local report shows that Luke Ravenstahl has been spending an average of more than $110k a year in tax dollars for the last three years to pay just the overtime costs of multiple police officers to escort him and keep him safe from whatever threats a mayor faces. The video shows a photo taken of the mayor and his taxpayer-funded security hanging out at a bar with a young chick on his lap wrapped around him while he was still legally married. (According to reports, he was separated from his wife at the time, but had told the press that he had no intention of actually divorcing her. Publicly screwing around her, apparently, but not divorcing her. She filed sometime after the photo was taken.)

As this news comes to light, political reporters note that this MAIG mayor is no longer attending political events and is expected to announce that he will either end his re-election campaign or possibly even resign over this and other police-related scandals that have involved his administration.

I would say that this sounds like a big improvement for the people of Pittsburgh. It’s bad enough to have a mayor who uses your public resources to go party and screw around on his wife. But to have that mayor saying you need to fund his personal security to those parties while you shouldn’t have the right to carry and defend yourself, well, that’s just insult to injury.

Bloomberg in DC, Lobbying

Meeting with lawmakers while the Senate is considering new gun control. It’s critically important that people call their Senators (202-224-3121) and express opposition to new gun control.

Bloomberg also visited Capitol Hill on Wednesday, and talked about guns with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and found the meetings productive. “While none of them made a specific commitment — so you can’t go back and say, ‘you told Bloomberg this’ — I walked away comfortable that they understand the issue and that they will be there,” he said.

Bloomberg and the media have been happy to spin the victory over Debbie Halvorson as his having bought that seat, but the Chicago Tribune thinks there’s more to it than that, and there certainly is. This was a long shot pickup possibility for us. I like making Bloomberg spend big money on long shots.

Also, the fact that McCain has been so non-committal on a private sale ban, instead of enthusiastically leading the charge, as you might expect, is surprising. I’m not certain he’s has a change of heart on the issue, but perhaps he realizes how bad it would damage the GOP if they are seen as caving to Bloomberg and the Administration on gun rights. If he doesn’t realize that, he should. And so should every other Republican.

So What if they Are?

We watched the full hearing organized by Senator Feinstein, and I managed to capture most of it for later presentment. I think the purpose of the hearing was so frustrated anti-gunners could yell at our witnesses and treat them disrespectfully, likely taking out their frustration that we’re beating them. Let us keep it up. The Washington Times covers one statement by the Wicked Witch of the West:

Assault weapons are â€œpersonal pleasure[s]â€ that should not take precedence over the good of the nation,â€ she said.

Yes, because we can only have personal pleasures, in Diane Feinstein’s world, at her pleasure. In her mind, we are not citizens, we are subjects. This is the same attitude that motivated insane moral crusaders like Carrie Nation.Â We all ought to have our own personal pleasures in life, and that is to the good of the nation, even of those pleasures are sometimes costly.

And furthermore, shooting is only a pleasure during normal circumstances. When things go pear shaped, it becomes a matter of life and death. I will have more video for you later. This hearing really was telling, and I want you to see the disdain they have for Americans. We have to toss these insufferable elites out on their tails.

Taking a Look at Bloomberg’s Mayors in 2013

It seems like we just put the presidential election behind us, and yet, there are already more elections to think about in terms of gun rights. Most political observers are already looking to 2014. However, Pennsylvania gun owners should be looking to this year’s municipal elections against mayors who have been lobbying Washington, DC officials in support of a ban on semi-automatic rifles and more via Bloomberg’s MAIG.

Many of the mayoral races are unchallenged, but others are closer than you would expect. Penndel’s 2009 mayoral race was decided by just 68 votes. Those in Pennsylvania might think that since Penndel is a pretty tiny borough, that seems like a pretty big margin. However, it doesn’t take into account significantly decreased turnouts in these off-year elections. Fewer than 26% of registered voters in the county actually cast a ballot in local races that year.

In the next county over, the contest for Pottstown mayor was decided by just 2 percentage points – even as write-in candidates took 5 points in the race. Somewhat farther north, the mayor of Roseto was elected by only 53 votes. Out in the western part of the state, Ingram’s anti-gun advocate mayor won his last election by just 9 votes.

If you want to help weaken Bloomberg’s anti-gun alliance, then this is a great way to start. Find out about your own races and get involved in the races around you if you can. Think about the race decided by 9 votes – you could help reach that many voters in one hour on a Saturday afternoon.

Astroturfing

Twitchy has some hard evidence that the gun control crowd is engaging in astroturfing efforts. We know that the call went out in New Jersey, and that the Obama people paid for busses in order not to have an embarrassing turnout last week, and SEUI is also on the hook to help Obama screw fellow union members out of jobs. You can hardly blame them, since without astroturf efforts, this is what the anti-gun movement looks like. Meanwhile, the Day of Resistance seemed to have good turnout in a lot of places, such as this demonstration in the Idaho Capitol. There was a successful counter-demonstration outside of John Runyan’s (R-NJ) Â office as well. Nonetheless, I do get concerned about our people wearing down with demonstration after demonstration. I think the purpose is to try to wear us down.

UPDATE from Bitter: Even Buzzfeed, which leans pretty far left on most things politics, concludes that the fake Twitter gun control astroturf is likely real. I searched the results on our lawmaker, and I found several egg accounts that were legit and underused, but just as many that were suspiciously devoid of any tweets except the one OFA-ordered message. They had no followers, they only followed the recommended celebrities pushed by Twitter, and they had no other interactions.

The Anti-Gun Rally

Great Satan, Inc. wanted to do a little compare and contrast between a pro-Second Amendment rally and a planned gun control rally. Only they couldn’t find the anti-gun rally. By the end of the trip, they thought they might have possibly found the rally. However, they then realized that it may have just been office workers on a smoke break.

Be Seen, Don’t Just Be Heard

Watching this new Obama video for gun control, we learn that Obama is very, very willing to flex Bloomberg’s muscle for his cause. He’s also relying upon Bloomberg’s money by seeing to it that he had more than 100 gun control advocates flown in to DC and to state capitals to push for his gun control agenda.

They highlight the importance of being seen by lawmakers. This is a reminder that if you can get out to a lawmaker town hall meeting or even just stop in their local district office, do it. Put a normal, reasonable face on gun owners. Invite them to speak at your local gun club and get people to turn out.

Lawmakers Want to Hear From You – Sorta

You have to love it when lawmakers post something that says they want to hear from voters, even though their mind is clearly made up. Take, for example, D-rated Rep. Maria Donatucci says she wants to hear people’s thoughts on the limits to gun ownership:

I respect the 2nd Amendment but should we draw a line?If so, where do we draw it? Types of weapons? amounts? Liability insurance?Comment…

— Rep.Maria Donatucci (@RepDonatucci) February 21, 2013

Based on the sudden flurry of later tweets talking how the Second Amendment was about the militia and how she only wants to restrict “weapons of mass destruction,” I guess some pro-liberty folks have responded.