Category: Anti-Gun Folks

One of the things I’ve been wondering ever since the news broke about Bloomberg’s big spend on a gun control ad during the Super Bowl is where exactly the ad would air. I saw many reporters simply repeating the line that it would be regional. Since Bloomberg has spent so much money on Pennsylvania, I wondered if this area would be a target. One reporter made a mention of asking about the regions, but did not publish and answer.

Yesterday, the NYT finally answered the question. Bloomberg only funded his gun control ad to run in DC. Yup, that’s right. He won’t take the fight to the states, only to other politicians. I think it represents an important trend with the Mayor to consistently try to overrule the voters by keeping up his relationships with and only target other elites. He doesn’t want to be bothered by us little people who might dare disagree with him and his nanny-state tendencies.

The Brady Campaign board decided to hire a president whose entire background is in advertising and non-profit work. He has no political background that I’ve seen, and what little does exist is entirely focused on New York. In other words, they hired someone who seemingly has no real network to get started on the DC political scene.

Now, assuming he’s a Democrat*, that will be an automatic in to gun control political circles that Paul Helmke never had. Unlike Helmke, he should have a background that the gun control caucus from highly urban areas can rally behind. But, since he doesn’t seem to have any direct experience playing the political game, it will be interesting to see how far this kind “in” can really take him politically.

In my mind, this type of hire gives a little more credit to the idea we’ve been talking about for a couple of years now that maybe the Brady Campaign is taking a backseat to the Brady Center. It’s probably easier to raise the (c)3 funds, and this would be a step in the direction of really focusing on the (c)3 work that isn’t just centered around Dennis Hennigan’s legal attempts to re-write the Second Amendment. Dan Gross can focus on happy, feel-good things that will look better to donors who might otherwise be tired of the losses they have faced politically and in the courts for the last three-and-a-half years.

*According to Open Secrets, there is a Daniel Gross from New York who has rather modestly donated to exclusively Democrats since 2007.

UPDATE: It looks like the Brady Campaign’s new president is trying to play a game of Down the Rabbit Hole. Silly Dan! Screenshots save evidence of your fumble. (See, I can use the Super Bowl theme, too!)

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I don’t even know what to say. They hired an advertising guy, and yet this is the mess that the Brady Campaign has been pushing lately. Racism, drug use, child neglect, embrace of the “thug” lifestyle, these are all things they have been promoting with the people they have been recently retweeting. I don’t know if I should feel sorry for the guy or if this is the kind of work he finds acceptable.

The Brady Campaign president, Dan Gross, lives in New York and pushed the ASK program at his previous job. In other words, he’s a big believer in the Bloomberg nannyism to get other people to dig into your personal lives at home. Perhaps the Brady board looked to Bloomberg’s work with MAIG and assumed that if they could just get someone like him, they could come back to the top of the gun control world.

This is rather funny since his first PR-related move as a leader of the Brady Campaign is a stumble. Or, rather, should I call it a fumble?

Um, no.

The first announcement is on their website. On Saturday. (Maybe even Friday since I didn’t look at it yesterday.)

The more cynical may point to this as another Brady lie. I just find it amusing and very much in line of their strategy for not actually reviewing anything before it goes out the door.

Also, I find it interesting that he has opted to make his announcement on a day where no one will care. Things people will talk about on Monday include the Nevada caucuses, the Super Bowl, the inevitable Boston riots, and Newt Gingrich’s lack of a plan. It won’t be the guy no one in DC has heard of taking over an organization that can’t even get their bills through a committee. I have to wonder if this was intentional on the part of the Brady Campaign.

Some of the latest controversy erupting in the gun blogosphere, surrounding the New Trajectory proprietor being “outed” by several people on our side. I wrote a post a while back offering my opinion on the whole “outing” thing, and when I thought it was proper to do it, and when it wasn’t. I’d hate to see the debate degenerate, and for us to allow our opponents’ childish behavior on this matter drag us all down into the sewers with them.

For whatever reason, the proprietor of New Trajectory has chosen to do his activism through a pseudonym, and I think we ought to respect that. I’ve never gotten the impression he was doing this to engage in sock puppetry, or to give himself any advantage. If anything, it puts him at a disadvantage. I have always chosen to do my real life activism under my real name, and my online activism under a pseudonym. I think people ought to be able to choose, and have that respected, and we ought to be better people about it than they are.

UPDATE: I take back what I said about Jason Kilgore. I hadn’t realized he was engaged in sock puppetry. Sorry Mary Rosh of the other side, you’re fair game.

UPDATE: More from a reader. My, my Jason… I think Baldr Odinson and Mary Rosh should go bowling. This is an object lesson for those on the other side who want to believe themselves superior. Trust me, you have your kooks and weirdos too.

Did you know that political interests of New York City were absolutely vital to Durham, NC voters in 2011? You didn’t? Well, the voters of Durham probably didn’t know that either.

[Mayor Bill] Bell’s year-end campaign-finance report to the county Board of Elections showed that he banked $4,000 – nearly a third of the $12,550 he raised in 2011 – from one source. …

No one from around here, as it happens: The $4,000 check came from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. …

A Bloomberg aide, Amanda Konstam, on Tuesday said her boss gave to Bell’s campaign because the Durham mayor “is a longtime supporter” of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. …

Bloomberg is a strong proponent of gun control. He offered the donation to Bell because he “supports those who support New York,” Konstam said.

Emphasis added for those of you Durham-area folks who are wondering just why Bloomberg’s spokeswoman believes that supporting New York City is on your city’s political agenda at all.

This is not the first time that Bloomberg has bankrolled his little minion mayors who “support New York” in their states hundreds and thousands of miles away from the Big Apple. His goal is to invest in these guys and hope they run for higher office.

Arma Borealis has a bit on how our opponents plan to drive their Starbucks Protest. Chris calls it “fake journalism.” That might be the case, but the tactic is smart. They know they can’t beat us with numbers, so they have to beat us with tactics. Their tactic, I don’t think, will change many minds on the issue. I personally don’t like being accosted and dragged into a cause when I’m on my way to do something. I think a lot of people feel the same way.

But what they hope, is that Starbucks will capitulate to them in order to make the unwanted attention go away. These are classic tactics to use in order to shake down a corporation into doing what you want them to do, and generally speaking, it’s effective. Will it work in this case? 11,000+ people on Facebook and still climbing, and this is a purely grassroots effort. I think it’s safe to say we could hit 20 or 30 thousand by the time February 14th rolls around. Those kinds of numbers talk, and what Starbucks surely doesn’t want, are those kinds of numbers turning against them.

Jacob is reporting on Mayor Mike and Mayor Mumbles appearing in locally targeted Super Bowl advertising time for MAIG. When evaluating how serious a threat our opponents actions represent, I try to ask myself whether I’d think NRA was wasting their money if they were to do the same thing. I think if NRA were taking out Super Bowl ads, I would say it’s a waste, so my impression is that this is flushing money down the toilet for MAIG.

CSGV has initiated a vicious and mean spirited attack against Emily Miller of the Washington Times. Just when I think the cretins at CSGV can’t possibly stoop any lower, I am proved wrong. Their string of vile and unprofessional behavior just continues to get worse. My guess is that what Emily did to upset them so much, is to be very effective in her testimony in front of DC City Council:

No, CSGV does not like having an attractive, educated and independent woman standing up to them and demanding the District of Columbia respect her and her rights. I have to wonder if half their anger is over gun owners not living up to the prejudices and stereotypes they have in their minds about the kind of people we are.

You see, they are supposed to be up against the kind of stereotype CSGV featured in their video. They can laugh, poke fun, and pass it around, safe in the smug satisfaction they obtain believing they are better and smarter than we are. They can remain safe in the notion that the right of those kinds of people don’t matter, and those folks are being done a favor, regardless, by limiting their access to objects that they are too incompetent to use without hurting themselves or others. But that’s not the case is it? Not with Emily, and not with the vast majority of the dedicated activists who have pounded CSGV’s political and cultural influence into the fatuous pagent of irrelevance that CSGV now parades in front of the public on a daily basis.

The 5 stages of grief in the Kubler-Ross model are worth mentioning, because I think it can be applied to watching their anti-gun movement slowly die on front of them. The Brady Campaign is still in denial. CSGV has clearly moved on to anger. The next step is bargaining, but there will be no bargaining; we are dedicated to their political extinction, and there will be no bargain. My advice to them is to quickly drink their way through depression, and get to acceptance as quickly as possible.