Category: Anti-Gun Folks

Even Sarah Brady, who gets the inside-the-beltway culture as much as the next person, is becoming unhinged lately. Check out this retweet from her:

Not content just to beat up on NRA, she has some interesting observations on Governor McDonnell of Virginia:

I said the same thing about a girl named Cindy in the first grade. But apparently Governor McDonnell isn’t the only one:

And what did she have to say about Rick Santorum’s announcement that he bought his sick little girl an NRA life membership?

I just want to thank Mrs. Brady for helping contribute to firing our people up this November. There’s always a risk that people forget guns are an issue when they are more worried about economic and fiscal issues. But lately the media and our opponents have been doing a bang up job of reminding NRA members that they are still hated and reviled, and nothing motivates our folks out to the polls more than that. If Sarah Brady has a hard time believing that:

You didn’t get to vote for him because NRA became deeply involved in the coalition to deliver Mike Castle’s political head on a shiny silver platter that primary^*, and we succeeded. Next target is Dick Lugar of Indiana this May 8th. Will we succeed? That’s going to depend largely on members turning out. But I do appreciate the help from our opponents.

^* Those on the left should take note that I said political head. I spelled it out for you so that you do not mindlessly think we beheaded the former Congressman. I can assure you that the Congressman is alive and doing well, just in case you were worried.

It’s becoming more clear to me that the former major gun control group, the Brady Campaign, are increasingly surrendering on influencing policy, and have adopted a new tactic of embracing radicalism, likely in an attempt to solicit more donors so they can all keep their jobs. Just take a look at Dan Gross’ statement from Brady:

Mitt Romney has already established a clear reputation for flip-flopping and pandering to win votes, and that is just what he is doing by speaking at the NRA convention.  This time he is going too far.  He is proudly aligning himself with a lobby that is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans every year, a lobby that uses a mentality of fear and paranoia, tinged with just the right amount of racism, to promote its sole agenda of selling more guns, with no concern for who buys those or how they are used.

So we’re racists and murderers now, according to the Brady Campaign. That, folks, isn’t meant to speak to politicians, the media, or other such people who can legitimately influence policy. That’s meant to speak to the mouth foamers and convince them to open their wallets. Not to be outdone, the Coalition to Stop Gun Ownership one decides they need to up the ante. In the realm of crazy, they will not be outdone by the pikers at the Brady Campaign.

Naturally I challenged such a ridiculous assertion, but they felt the need to keep digging:

So I follow their link, and it starts out with a bunch of statements from Carol Bambery that are unsupported by live links, and then moves on quickly to the white supremacist statements of… Ken Blackwell.

Now I have my disagreements with Blackwell. He’s a strong social conservative and on social issues I tend to run pretty liberal. But calling Ken Blackwell a White Supremacist is up there with the best tin foil hat rhetoric I’ve run across.

And finally, the coup de grace:

Yes, folks, this George Wallace who famously said “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” This is not a message aimed at a rational audience. This is a message aimed at people who are mentally off kilter, or highly ignorant, and who I’m sure CSGV are hoping are ignorant enough to actually donate them money, or you know, show up a protest. I know from my own activist experience that the off kilter and ignorant are unreliable and often counterproductive to have on your side. This is a losing strategy for them. To be relevant you need people who live in a reality, not mouth foamers. Mouth foamers will just destroy your credibility. We should be happy our opponents seem to have lost touch with reality as we know it. We are winning. MAIG is the only remaining serious threat.

I’m really not sure how this kind of logic works, but try to follow along as CNN’s Piers Morgan explains why it’s particularly relevant we listen to a New Jersey mayor on a shooting in Florida:

On Thursday, the 42-year-old saved a neighbor from a burning building, carrying a young woman to safety through flames, and receiving smoke inhalation and second degree burns on his hands in the process.

The recent rescue has thrust Booker into the national spotlight, allowing him the platform to comment on a variety of issues, including gun control in relation to Martin and the “Stand Your Ground” law:

Because he ran into a burning building and is getting press attention for it, this makes him even more qualified to talk about gun laws – I don’t even know how those issues even begin to connect.

Booker uses the question to push for gun control like going after FFLs and gun shows – neither issue which has anything to do with the Florida situation.

The Coalition to Stop Gun Ownership Violence has been coming unhinged lately, but they really took the cake when they Tweeted this bit of racism:

This is coming from an organization that continually denies gun control has racist origins, and that gun control today is not racially motivated. But if you say this is a “white culture war” doesn’t that imply that you think this right is for white people? I think we’re all firm believers that the Second Amendment right is one that belonged to all people, yet we’re often labeled as the racist ones.

I’m sure it will come as a great surprise to NRA’s African American members who are here today that they are part of a white culture war. I’m sure it was a surprise to Governor Bobby Jindal, who is of Indian descent, that his unwavering support of the Second Amendment is part of a “white culture war.”

One has to wonder what other rights our opponents think are “white.”

He wants to build a rival to the NRA. Unfortunately, for that, you’d need actual grassroots, and I don’t mean a handful of mayors that have a higher rate of criminality than concealed carry permit holders. That said, MAIG is now the only gun control group out there who can give us a run for our money.

By way of illustration, a spokesman for the mayor sent over some examples of the group’s public lobbying efforts aimed at swingable officials, including a full-page ad in the Cleveland Plain Dealer inwhich 50 Ohio mayors implored then-senator George Voinovich to fight a provision very similar to the concealed-carry reciprocity now under consideration in Congress.

Voinovich subsequently voted against the amendment.

And Vionovich was forced into retirement because polls were showing he was going to lose. Was that all guns? No. But politics doesn’t work that way. As long as your coalition can swing close races then politicians will pay attention to you, because most races are close.

I’ve always been frustrated because our grassroots seem to be slow to wake up and slow to anger, but when something really hits a nerve, it leaves even me, who pays close attention to the issue, pretty surprised. On the issue of national reciprocity, the number of permit holders in the United States is roughly 5 to 6 million and climbing. There’s no politician in the world that wants to write off the votes of 5 to 6 million Americans out of the gate.

CSGV announces that, even in light of factual information, they still plan to keep obfuscating and misleading.

This should be the new mantra of the anti-gun crowd: “Lynch first, and ask questions later.” The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence’s 501(c)(3) bastard cousin who they all actually work for, funds the “Meet the NRA” web site which profiles “controversial” (in CSGV’s world) things that Board members say by taking them out of context and misleading readers. Lately they’ve been adding to Ted Nugent’s list (a long list, they don’t call him the Motor City Madman for nothing) of quotes, which he speaks against George Zimmerman being tried in the media before he’s even had a fair trial, and all the facts have come out.

I’ll be the first to admit I often find Nugent’s over the top rhetoric to be exactly that, but what’s objectionable with the idea of presumption of innocence, and the right to a trial by a fair and impartial jury? I only have to assume if CSGV believes these ideas condemn Ted Nugent, it means they reject these principles themselves. Are the fine with trial by media? Would they fine with just summarily hanging Zimmerman from a sour apple tree as long as enough voices from the mob called for it? I will be the first to suggest political activism is a necessarily ugly process, often disconnected from reality, but presumption of innocence is a bedrock principle of a free society. The fact that our opponents seem to be against that basic hallmark tells me all I need to know about the necessity of opposing them vigorously.

CSGV particularly has been quick to summon the ghosts of the Founding Fathers, to suggest we’re all suffering from delusion to believe they would have supported so much gun nuttery. They believe they are the true carriers of the Founders’ flame, and have said so on several occasions. But John Adams risked his safety and reputation to defend the sentries who were put on trial following another public outrage and trial by media, ginned up as “The Boston Massacre.” Adams abhorred the mob, probably more than he abhorred the crown. The justice of the law may not always be justice, but I don’t think the justice of the mob can ever be justice, and organizations like CSGV and the Brady Campaign ought to be ashamed of themselves for not only promoting it, but condemning those who stand up for the bedrock principles of a free Republic.

Megan McArdle’s guest blogger, Adam Ozimek,  writes about a concept, in the opposition to “pink slime”, I think is important to understand:

Instead, most of these things are about signaling something else about ourselves. If people’s desire to regulate pink slime isn’t about health, safety, or even taste, then what is it about? Robin would probably suggest that it is about signaling. Pink slime is seen as low status, and even though consuming it is not bad for our selves or our children, we would ban it to show that we care. This Hansonion hypothesis is borne out pretty clearly by a lot of pink slime complaints.

I believe this plays heavily into the motivation for many opponents of gun ownership. They are doing it “because doing so shows that we care.” And by opposing them, we signal to them that we don’t, which makes us evil people. The world would be a much better place if some of these people found more productive means for bolstering their self-esteem.

The New York Times speaks of the law of the gun in Florida, and notes that goes to the GOP convention in Tampa could be around other people with concealed handguns. You know, like it’s been in most states for the past several decades. The horror.

The Los Angeles Times notes that NRA members would like to shoot the Easter Bunny (I kid you not) with us gun nuts being so stand your ground and all.

The New York Times again, suggesting it’s time to talk about guns. Of course, this means it’s time to talk about restricting guns. You see, even if you believe in the Second Amendment, surely that can’t mean, if you’re a reasonable and sophisticated person like a writer for the New York Times, that it’s actually a right, right?

I believe the time has long passed for people on the right-of-center coalition, no matter how thick and luxurious your Wookie suit, or whether you choose to wear one at all, to cancel your subscriptions to biased print media (though, I would make some exceptions for papers that do good reporting and are willing to be fair. There is at least one around here) and cut the cord on the cable. It only feeds the enemies of our Republic.

Shocker, PolitiFact finds the Bradys are full of shit. If this was true, I would have renewed my Florida permit. As it is, my local PD fingerprints only a few days a week and not during convenient hours. My friend Jason also got his Florida CWL in the same class I got mine, and when he went to renew, his local PD refused to take the prints because it was for a Florida CWL. Some digging, and we find during the anti-gun Rendell Administration, the State Police put out an advisory to local PDs not to fingerprint people for Florida licenses.

This is also despite the fact that both Jason and I have PA LTCs, and aren’t exploiting what our opponents misleadingly label as a “loophole.” Since my dad moved out of Delaware, I don’t really get that much use from the reciprocity anyway, so I never took this issue back up.