Category: Anti-Gun Folks

Given that the Communication Director for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Ladd Everitt, is a contributor at this site, don’t expect him to be condemning this bit of insurrectionist thinking any time soon:

I think it’s no accident that the question of self-defense has been coming up in some circles in the Occupy movement at this time. Having the discussion reflects how many people are realizing that moving the 1 percent out of the driver’s seat is a revolutionary mission. The person who doesn’t feel fear at the prospect of revolution is out of touch with their feelings. It’s only natural at such a moment to wonder if there is some way to act boldly — and at the same time stay safe.

The author even notes the history of armed resistance to the Klan and other aspects of the civil rights movement that occurred; facts that make Ladd Everitt decidedly uncomfortable. To be clear I don’t view violence as a legitimate answer to the problem of the 1%, the 3% or whatever side it’s coming from, provided the mechanisms of our Republic still largely function. But the author is at least taking a serious look at a serious topic. When we do this, Ladd is all over us for our “insurrectionism” and violence rhetoric. It just goes to show his double standard, and the double standard of all our opponents.

CSGV has been hawking this story for the past week, and I guess they found an outlet lacking in enough credibility enough to bite. I am not normally one to defend NAGV, but if anyone thinks this graphic is a threat to the President, they are completely delusional. Besides, NAGR is not alone, as Miguel has found numerous instances of Google making violent threats against the President and other high-profile public figures.

If this is the juvenile accusations our opponents have stooped to, I feel pretty good about things. I saw some of the folks who follow CSGV mention that this notion of an Obama gun ban is just lunacy, but for once this is based on an actual issue, namely the re-importation of M1 Garand rifles. While the Administration has reluctantly allowed the importation of 86,000 M1 Garands from South Korea, it is still blocking the importation of some 600,000 M1 Carbines, because “they come with a magazine that can carry multiple rounds.”

Ordinarily, both the M1 Garand and M1 Carbine are considered Curious & Relics under federal law, and are unrestricted from importation, regardless of the “sporting purposes” requirement. But because the Department of Defense still exercises controls over re-importation of firearms sold or given as surplus to foreign governments, the Administration has chosen to ban these rifles from re-importation. So it is correct to suggest that this is a gun ban imposed by the Administration.

I was using the recent example of the Greeks electing 25 members of what is essentially a Nazi-like party to the Greek Parliament in a conversation with CSGV, as further refutation of their notion that sometimes democratic republics fail. Here’s what they had to say:

I don’t know if Skippy the Intern is running the Twitter feed here, but there’s somewhere on the order of 50,000,000 people, and about 6 million jews, who would take exception to the notion that far-right participation in European governance has never lead to catastrophe. That is, they’d take exception if they were still alive. But they aren’t alive, because the far-right governance in Europe decided to kill them all in a bit of a catastrophe the rest of us call the Second World War. They continue digging:

Yes, and if only the Weimar government had instituted strict gun controls, perhaps World War II never would have happened, since we all know gun control is quite effective at stopping National Socialists from arming themselves.

Our opponents are poor students of history, and naive in regards to human nature. The perfectibility of man has always been a conceit of the left. The Judeo-Christian tradition of viewing mankind as fallen is probably the more accurate way to approach questions of human nature. Civilization is a very thin veneer, easily scratched off, and what’s under the veneer is very very ugly. The disarmed Germans found that out the hard way.

Looks like Coalition to Stop Gun Ownership Communication Director Ladd Everitt is continuing his very best Baghdad Bob impersonation, this time denying to the Daily Caller that Fast and Furious has had all that much impact on people’s lives.

Coalition spokesman Ladd Everitt argued that there was no evidence for The Daily Caller to report that “[t]here are hundreds of Mexican citizens who were murdered with weapons the Obama administration gave to cartels through Fast and Furious and two American law enforcement officers — Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata — were killed with Fast and Furious guns.”

Everitt argued that he didn’t think there is “actual trace and ballistics evidence to prove that conclusively.”

So we can count on the National Coalition to Ban Handguns to drop its support for ballistics databases then? I mean, since it doesn’t work and all. But this is further proof that their phony baloney concern for gun violence is nothing but a ruse. I never thought I’d see the day when “gun violence prevention” groups covered for an administration aiding and abetting illegal smuggling of firearms. I always knew they were dishonest, but I did not believe they would stoop that low.

That now seems to be the philosophy of our opponents.

On the anniversary of Virginia Tech, apparently the Brady folk didn’t have a whole lot of luck convincing anyone to sign their pledge to support gun control. As Jacob notes, there are a lot of reps in safe districts that could have played along. Why haven’t they?

NRA becomes toxic when exposed to light, says Dan Gross:

In the weeks since George Zimmerman’s killing of Trayvon Martin, corporate America has been force fed a crash survey of public opinion on gun policy. Some of America’s most popular –and message-savvy — companies announced their swift verdict when they, and then ALEC, withdrew support for the National Rifle Association’s paranoid, violent agenda.

You’d think with Gross’s background, he’d know that corporate PR departments generally eschew any kind of controversy. The reason they put the screws to ALEC is because they were looking to ALEC to defend their economic interests, and didn’t want to be associated with ancillary issues like gun rights or voting rights. Sean makes a very cogent argument that the real target of this was the Voter ID law. In this case, the astroturf campaign run by Soros seized upon the Trayvon Martin shooting as a means to defang ALEC, and ALEC, being largely funded by corporate interests, obliged.

But nothing in Gross’s wild eyed ramblings changes the fact that a movement that has people power does not require the use of ALEC. They believe the tide is turning in their favor. I think that entirely depends on us. It is time to awaken the sleeping giant. Tell your shooting buddies to get ready, because over the next several months, everything we worked for the past two decades is going to be under fierce attack, and it will all be on the line. All of it. But if we go into 2013 having beaten them, they’ll be finished. This is our opportunity.

He says he had an “unusual cultural advantage,” in targeting gun rights, being from Arkansas. Al Gore should have too, and that didn’t work out too well for him given he lost his own state of Tennessee. His unusual cultural advantage was that he ran against Bob Dole for re-election, who had stuck it to gun owners by refusing to bring up a repeal of the Assault Weapons Ban in the Senate.

He’s been showing up to protests, and doing a lot of independent work in the gun rights violence prevention movement. He must be looking to get hired by someone. But by who? CSGV is going to be lucky to meet payroll for the employees they already have. Brady is similarly headed into the abyss, and besides, they just hired Dan Gross who will turn things around by turning on the crazy. CeaseFirePA? That’s Max’s show now. That only leaves Bloomberg, and what does Joe Grace have to offer to Bloomberg?

Grace was Communications Director for the City of Philadelphia under Mayor Street, and then went to work for CeaseFire Pennsylvania. After that he unsuccessfully ran for Philadelphia City Council. If anyone knows of a good senior political communications job in Dem-Progressive politics, let us know in the comments. It’s very important for us to help out-of-work anti-gunners  (or even in-work anti-gunners, who are just looking for a career change) find work in other fields. We really do care!

This was entirely expected, for one of the anti-gun Senators to put a hold on the reciprocity bills. It was always going to take 60 votes to get this passed, as it did last time it was up. Do we have sixty votes? Hard to say. Last time it failed by two, if I recall, but Schumer had some more votes in his pocket if he had needed them. It should be noted that this hold is on both S.2188, which is the bipartisan bill, and S.2213, which is only being sponsored by Republicans. I still stand by my prediction that without both parties coming together around one bill, that this won’t happen.

Worth noting that Senator Pat Toomey has signed on as a co-sponsor to S.2213, but that Senator Bob Casey Jr. has not signed on to either, despite claims of being pro-gun. Also worth noting that Senator Casey allegedly had a deal cut with Schumer to vote no on the bill if needed.