Category: Anti-Gun Folks

When we started looking at the new Brady boycott of Starbucks, we wondered if they would be silly enough to show their cards. I assumed they wouldn’t when they were making crazy claims like this:

Because we outnumber the NRA’s extremist members by 50 to 1, NGAC’s economic lever gives our side a strategy the NRA cannot defeat.

There’s simply nothing to actually back that up. Under the supervision of actual DC professionals, the official Brady Starbucks protest of two years ago kept their numbers secret for a reason. They collected the “petitions” in order to build their email list, and they could then claim to do “something” even if no one signed other than the staff and board members. This new Brady division seems to have forgotten some of those key points.

They actually started a competing Facebook event for their boycott. As of this post, they have 137 planned attendees. Okay, so maybe it’s still something that Starbucks could be losing 137 customers. However, looking at the comments on their wall, that’s not the case. Here’s a sample:

• “reeeely EZ to boycott a place I never go lol”
• “Oh I have HATED coffee shops for many many years..EASY PEASY!”
• “I ALWAYS boycott Starbucks because of Schultz’ views about Palestine”
• “I have always boycotted Starbucks.”
• “I don’t do Starbucks because I don’t drink coffee.”
• “I am in a perpetual boycott of their sub par hot chocolate and overpriced pretentious products.”
• “This may not be as difficult for me as some others. I’ve never been in a Starbucks.”
• “I HAVE NEVER BEEN IN A STARBUCKS FACILITY BUT I SUPPORT WHAT YOU ARE DOING BECAUSE YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A CONSIENCIOUS PERSON WHO ADVOCATED FOR ISSUES THAT WERE IMPORTANT TO PEOPLE.”
• “I quit using Starbucks more than a year ago, but I totally support your efforts on this important issue!!”

There are like two people who have said that they ever visit Starbucks and may reconsider during the boycott. Otherwise, Starbucks is only being “boycotted” by people who already don’t shop there.

Meanwhile, on our side, our folks are going out of their way to support the company. Those who are regular customers are planning on buying a little extra on February 14, so ultimately they win. As of this post, Starbucks is gaining more than 9,200 customers old and new on February 14. So, yeah. Those numbers make the case pretty clearly. Which is why I’m still shocked they actually wanted to show their cards like this.

UPDATE: I guess they were tired of us showing over and over how low their numbers really are since they have now hidden the number of attendees from their Facebook event page. Thirdpower has a screenshot from yesterday morning when they had 132 attendees.

This is made of utter fail for our opponents Boycott:

Congratulations to the folks at NGVAC, you’ve likely succeeded in being salespeople of the year for Starbucks Coffee. If this number keeps going up, Starbucks isn’t just going to ignore you’ll, they’ll tell you to protest them again so they can see another boost in sales that day.

Yes, that’s 6600+ people, and the number just keeps going up. Last night it was at 5900.

Strategically, the smartest opponents to the right to bear arms are now based out of the offices of a billionaire in New York City. The folks who are headquartered in Washington, DC have been on the decline.

But here’s what I find interesting. Sebastian noted that the National Gun Victims Action Council are “a particularly whacked out fringe group” based on their very bizarre claims and goals. First of all, they carry this warning in large red letters on their website:

CAUTION

Whenever you hear ANYTHING about guns that seems appealing, reasonable or factual KNOW IT IS PROBABLY NOT TRUE. For the facts contact us at: info@gunvictimsaction.org

Second, they really do work on the assumption that every person in the U.S. should be a presumed future criminal with claims like this: Fact: Every criminal was once law abiding citizen.

Third, instead of the standard Brady talking points that they don’t actually want to come for our guns, NGAC outright admits their goal is to come take our guns away: Any sane gun law will lead to the government being able to take your guns away.

What’s interesting is that their boycott is not based on the idea that they don’t want to be around gun owners while they enjoy their scones and frappuccinos, it’s actual goal is to force Starbucks to donate to NGAC. To end the boycott will require Starbucks ban all guns from its stores—and become a major supporter of policies to reduce gun violence. In other words, banning guns isn’t enough. They will demand that corporations line the pockets of the leaders of this group in order to end the boycott.

But here’s the very interesting thing about the National Gun Victims Action Council: They are the Brady Campaign.

From their Board biographies:

• Elliot Fineman is a senior member of the Brady PAC–Illinois, the group that makes endorsements on behalf of the Brady Campaign in Illinois.
• Andrew Goddard is the President of the Richmond Chapter of the Million Mom March, a division of the Brady Campaign.
• Lori O’Neill is the past President & Vice President of the Million Mom March of Cleveland which she calls the “grassroots arm of the Brady Campaign.”
• Jeanne Bishop has served as President of the North Suburban Chicagoland Million Mom March Chapter and lists herself as a general Brady Campaign volunteer.
• Griffin Dix was Chairman of the Brady Campaign’s Million Mom March National State Presidents Council and the chapter-elected member of the Brady Campaign Board of Trustees.
• Bill Jenkins is married to the National Program Director for Victims and Survivors for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and represents the organization with his wife at public events.
• Thom Mannard is a founding member of the Brady PAC-Illinois.
• Alice Thomas-Norris is the President of the Million Moms March Chicago Chapter of Survivors for the Brady Campaign.
• Tom Vanden Berk is a board member of the Brady Campaign/Million Mom March.
• Amanda & Nick Wilcox are Legislative Co-Chairs of the California Chapters of the Brady Campaign as well as leaders of the Sacramento Valley Chapter and the Nevada County Brady Campaign Chapter.
• Willie Williams works with the Brady Campaign to target pro-rights lawmakers in Illinois during election years.
• Heidi Yewman is the Washington state president of the Million Mom March/Brady Campaign.

In other words, out of 16 people listed on NGAC’s board, 13 are in the Brady Campaign leadership. Most are state leaders, but several are national leaders.

So, given that this new unofficial arm of the Brady Campaign is turning towards a mission of embracing extreme gun control & extended boycotts, it looks like the folks who recognize at least some limits of Heller & McDonald have been run out of the organization. This suddenly makes much more sense when it comes to Helmke’s departure. Whereas he probably didn’t think it was wise to keep spending money trying to promote boycotts and petition drives to private corporations that weren’t working, they don’t want to relent. When he conceded that Heller took door-to-door confiscation off the table for the time being, they don’t consider that limitation to be within the realm of sanity. Certainly, this explains a lot of the odd behavior we’ve seen out of what was once the dominant gun control organization in the country over the last year and a half.

Josh Sugarmann and the VPC were always a little out there, but Sugarmann has always been more honest about his end goals than many of his counterparts, and he was a man willing to do his homework on the issue. For a while he was the brains of the gun control movement.

But now VPC wants to take personally owned firearms away from soldiers because they might hurt themselves with it. Yeah, that’s a message I’d want to take front and center in front of the public as an example of the kind of common sense measures their movement thinks we need. This has about as much logic as suggesting that depressed doctors and pharmacists remove any medication from their medicine cabinet at home because the easy access means it’s too easy for them to deliberately OD.

All the usual suspects are in dire straits because the President didn’t mention anything about gun control, err, sorry, gun violence, in his state of the union address. I don’t know why they are surprised by this. There’s only one person who wants to avoid the gun issue in the 2012 campaign more than Obama, and his first name rhymes with shit. Yet they continue to act like jilted stalkers lovers when Obama doesn’t toss them a bone during high-profile public speeches.

But who can blame them? Friends are hard to find these days for the gun control movement. We all remember Andrew Cuomo right? He was the HUD secretary under Clinton that sued firearms manufacturers, and then strong-armed Smith and Wesson into accepting the infamous deal that very nearly ruined its iconic American brand. Now Cuomo, following in his dad’s footsteps, is Governor of New York, and the state is running out of money. When it comes to fiscal responsibility and keeping up appearances for the sake of the gun control groups, what does he choose? Fiscal responsibility. He’s recommending the CoBIS ballistic database be scrapped, because it costs too much money and is ineffective. Andrew Cuomo is proposing scrapping a gun control law, because it doesn’t work. He is no longer willing to pretend the emperor is wearing clothes. I half expect next that Bill Clinton will come out of his Manhattan Office with an AR in one hand and an AK in the other, thrusting them in the air exclaiming “You know all that gun control stuff? Yeah. That was all Hillary. Long live the NRA!”

California Assemblyman Anthony Portantino has introduced a bill to ban the open carry of rifles, as well as handguns. The courts are the only thing that will save gun rights in California now. It’s pretty clear the legislature there has carte blanche to enact whatever restrictions they desire.

We’re told by our opponents that the candle light vigils that occurred on the anniversary of the mass shooting in Tucson that claimed the lives of a number of people, and severely injured Congresswoman Giffords, were merely an expression of honoring victims, and is thus beyond reproach. But from a Minnesota Public Radio article, we can see even the people who supposedly organized against “gun violence” say it was a political stunt:

The nationwide “Too Many Victims” vigils demanded that public officials commit to stopping these needless deaths. We must start with the source of the guns.

So here we have two organizers fully admitting the goal of these vigils was political, while at the same time groups like CSGV and Brady shield themselves behind a veil of victimhood while they conspire to destroy our constitutional right to keep and bear arms. I’m calling shenanigans on that. The goal of this vigil was, all along, political in nature, as was painfully obvious to anyone with half a brain. That essentially means the event is not above criticism, no matter what kind of nonsense our opponents want to try to convince people.

In a sense, they really are victims. Politically, they are beaten, and by people they’ve always considered unenlightened and less civilized than are they. We are increasingly finding ourselves more mainstream, while they are more marginalized. They know this as well as anyone, which is why they having nothing left to do but lash out in anger. We have them on the ropes folks, and now is not the time to let up.

From Joe Huffman, who picked my bit from yesterday about the state of the debate as quote of the day:

Their “political currency” is the tragedy of their victim “heroes”. Ours is the enabling of self reliance and determination. There is no common ground upon which to compromise or even talk.

I largely agree. One thing that’s pretty clear from the candle lighting nonsense is the degree to which the other side revels in victimhood. It is not an existence I can even begin to understand. I would feel great shame if I behaved like this, or if someone in my family behaved like this in response to one of our family tragedies. The truth is I feel sorry for many of these folks, but not because of their victimhood, but because they have found themselves unable to move on. Instead they have externalized their victimhood, and actively seek to restrict the rights of those who do not identify as victims. Indeed, they seem to have developed an active hatred and loathing for those who promoted self-reliance and self-determination.

By now anyone on Twitter, Facebook, or other places where our opponents lurk realize that the debate has gotten quite ugly. Even the Brady Campaign has diminished considerably in its professionalism after the departure of Paul Helmke, and their apparent inability to find new, effective leadership. CSGV has had zero professionalism since I’ve paid attention to it, but lately it’s descended into sheer madness.

Joe Huffman believes they have asked for it. Barron Barnett is considerably less forgiving, and notes the out of context quotes, he also tries to set the record straight. Jennifer tried to engage in some dialog, but that didn’t go too well. I think we have passed the point, to be honest, where these folks deserve the dignity of being treated like reasonable adults. As they have plainly demonstrated, they are incapable of acting in such a manner. There is a saying that I think is very telling for dealing with the likes of CSGV, Joan, and the various other public anti-gun individuals: it is never wise to wrestle with a pig. You’ll both end up covered in shit, but the pig will like it.

I don’t really see any point in debating children. When they spew official ridiculousness, naturally, I’ll point it out. But I’m through with the childish mud slinging from the likes of Ladd Everitt and Joan Peterson. No matter what halos they want to perch atop their heads, they are intellectual midgets who can’t stand up to serious debate without lashing out, and then hiding behind their victimhood when others rhetorically hit them back. It’s not a game we’re going to win, because all they are looking to accomplish is to drag us down to their level, and even the playing field. I am still a big believer in engagement with those who disagree with us, but not with people who are incapable of civilized debate. Engagement with such people can serve no purpose.

So from now on, I will only shame and criticize these people. I will no longer engage in debate, or give any credibility to them. Since the media no longer pays attention to them, I don’t see why we should. Let them continue to grease the slide that leads into the dustbin of history. and we can watch with detached amusement.

Apparently they missed the filing deadline in one of the cases they were fighting, causing it to be dismissed.

After the Superior Court granted the motion to dismiss, the plaintiffs continued their attack against the PLCAA by renewing their motion to file a third amended complaint and separate motion to reargue the order dismissing their case. Unfortunately for the Brady Campaign, their attorneys filed their paperwork four minutes after the filing deadline. The Superior Court subsequently denied the motion to reargue as untimely and denied their motion to amend — in part because the plaintiffs had already been granted several opportunities to establish that their claims were not barred by the PLCAA and failed to do so each time.

Hat tip to Dave Hardy, who notes a few more things that made it a pretty good day. Of course, losing on the multiple rifle reporting requirement tempers that a bit, I think. However, I’ll take this victory. It’s almost like they aren’t even trying anymore.