Category: Gun Rights

Took a bit to catch up on blogs, since I hadn’t been reading all week because of the mid-week business trip to Boston. But now I’m caught up, and have my tabs loaded up.

Thirdpower compares CSGV headquarters in Washington D.C. to NRA’s Headquarters in Fairfax. CSGV HQ is located over a bar. To be fair, NRA’s Federal Affairs office in D.C. is located over a bar as well. I’d also point out, having been in NRA’s office, they aren’t wasting your membership money on posh office furniture. I also find it interesting that despite the claim CSGV is not about banning guns, their office decor would seem to say otherwise.

Tam notes that parody is becoming impossible.

Jacob notes gun control FAIL in New York’s Capitol in Albany. Bitter’s talk at NRA’s Grassroots Seminar was better attended than this rally, and this is New York State. Naturally the media ignored it. The big problem is that the cowards at ALEC and Corporate America in general don’t know the difference between a real grassroots movement, and astroturfing ginned up by Soros and his buddies. Jacob also notes that Mayor Bloomberg isn’t very highly regarded by NRA Annual Meeting attendees.

Back to Thirdpower again, where he notes that CSGV would seem to believe that women should run away from spousal abusers rather than act in self-defense. I’m becoming more and more convinced that the extremists at the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence do not, in fact, believe in the right to defend ones life.

Tom Maguire notes that at least some in the black community are speaking out against seeking justice for Trayvon by beating up white people, but we’re hearing crickets from the Rev. Al and Rev. Jackson.

Clayton Cramer notes that gun owners might want to close their accounts with Bank of America and reports on an important case in the Kentucky Supreme Court which allows students to have a firearm in their vehicle on campus.

NRA-ILA’s Chief Lobbyist Chris Cox writes a letter to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, decrying their position on guns in parking lots.

A gun carrying man ended a stabbing spree, which is two things our opponents say never happens wrapped into one incident, that a gun owner stopped a mass killer, and that there are such things as stabbing sprees.

Americans are increasingly in favor of gun rights and gay marriage. I favor both, as does Professor Reynolds, who I owe a hat tip to for this link.

John Richardson notes that Holder is getting close to being issued a contempt citation, and that there are no coincidences when it comes to BATFE dragging forward the Mexican Gun Canard once again.

Larry Elder, of the Los Angeles Daily News, notes that gun owners are wise to fear Obama. Anyone who can count to five can see that, which apparently does not include many members of the media.

Eugene Volokh notes a Second Amendment case in Hawaii that could mean someone convicted of misdemeanor harassment, that did not involve violence, cannot be denied the right to own a firearm.

Thirdpower rubs it in for opponents a bit that the task force that will examine Florida’s gun laws seems set to have a number of pro-gun people on it, which likely mean it’s not meant to come to a predetermined conclusion in favor of gun control. In fact, this probably won’t end well for our opponents. They seem to believe that this is it. This is the big one. The event that makes the pendulum swing back around in their favor.

The thing is, I’m not sure they won’t ultimately be right in the end. The case against Zimmerman is so thin you could shine a candle through it, which makes it ripe for being dismissed under Florida’s immunity statute. If cities ultimately burn because our opponents managed to amp up the mob, things could get very bad for us. But whether the pendulum ultimately swings or not, is up to us. We’re a movement that can turn out close to 74,000 people in crappy weather in St. Louis. There’s really no excuse for getting our butts handed to us by these people.

Last night I interviewed with the Politics and Guns Podcast, by Paul Lathrop, over on Gun Rights Radio Network. You can find the episode here.

Mother of a Virginia Tech victim speaks out… in favor of campus carry. Watch our opponents try to uncomfortably explain why her victimhood is less legitimate, somehow, than their victimhood.

Before our opponents get too fired up, thinking they are swinging back the pendulum, while they’ve been busy foaming at the mouth over Ted Nugent, NRA has managed to pass a bill through the House that would prevent EPA from touching traditional lead ammunition, would keep federal lands open to hunting and shooting, and would grandfather polar bear hides and other products from the importation restriction provided they were taken before the species was listed as “threatened.”

UPDATE: Already pissing off the right people.

Much hay is being made of Ted Nugent’s rhetoric at the annual meeting, where he apparently urged members to figuratively “Chop their heads off in November.” Apologizes are being demanded of Mitt Romney for ever haven been within a 1/4 mile of the Nuge, and naturally the Obama Administration is helping play this up, given that the Secret Service has apparently taken some time off from procuring underaged Colombian prostitutes to take a look at the situation.

That said, I’ve never been a fan of Nugent’s over-the-top rhetoric, but that’s too bad, because there’s nothing I can do about it. Uncle Ted is one of the highest vote getters every time he’s up for the Board. Any time he’s around at Annual Meeting people are lining up around the corner to meet him, get autographs, or what have you. Our opponents are constantly telling us nonsense like the NRA leadership are out of touch with their membership. I hate to tell you guys, but the reason Nuge can dominate a board election is because a lot of members like his over-the-top, take-no-prisoners confrontational style. They get to see Ted Nugent say and do things that validates many of their core beliefs, and say it in a way they could never get away with in polite society. It is a difficult thing for our opponents to accept, but if NRA is out of touch with its members, that often runs in the other direction, and not in their direction.

To understand that, is to understand the Nuge appeal. So help me God, I don’t understand it, but a coalition made up of people just like me would be a very small one. Without the kind of people Nuge can fire up and bring to the table, we don’t really have a movement, and that’s an important thing to remember for those of us who are often embarrassed by his rhetoric.

The GOP and their political apparatus can always be counted on to run for cover and hide when the going gets tough. They are, at best, fair-weather friends to the Second Amendment. The great source of NRA’s power is derived from its membership, to harken back to an old post on the sources of NRA’s power. In addition to its membership, there’s a much larger pool of people who are influenced by NRA’s opinions but may not be currently paying dues (and thus not counted as members). I’ve seen polls suggesting this is as many as 33 million people.

So how much does ALEC turning chicken shit hurt? That depends entirely on NRA’s membership. If members stay active an engaged, this is at worst a minor setback. If NRA membership buy the notion, peddled in the media, that there are no threats to gun rights, that we’ve won, already, then this is a harbinger of the pendulum swinging back, NRA losing influence, and the insanity of groups like CSGV and the Brady Campaign carrying the day.

Arma Borealis, an Alaska blog, has some pretty good discussion on the effects of the Canadian Long Gun Registry for Americans traveling through Canada. Apparently the long gun registration requirement had a very negative effect on Americans traveling to the great white north for hunting trips, into the 4 to 5 billion dollar lost range.

Keep in mind that the requirement did not ban Americans from hunting in Canada, they just had to register their long arms and obtain a 50 dollar license. The license fee is peanuts compared to the cost of a Canadian hunting trip, so if that many hunters, to the tune of billions of dollars, were unwilling to register their hunting guns, it should offer our opponents an example of why they will have such a hard time getting registration. There are certainly hunters out there who meet the classic definition of “fudd,” but there are also many, probably more, who have no more enthusiasm for registration than most hard core gun rights activists.

TBCKADOOT blogs about pant loads of PSH. It’s kind of like someone green lighted everyone in the media to say “It’s OK to hate on gun owners again.” One of my big fears headed into 2012 was that gun owners would be mostly asleep, and not really concerned about threats to their gun rights, since there weren’t any obvious and apparent threats, only subtle ones. Additionally, the media really did get better about the issue for a while.

Well, that’s not the case anymore. This has been a stern reminder for people on our side that they hate you. They hate everything about you just for the fact that you have a hobby and a philosophy that they find objectionable. That’s why I’m a big fan of pulling the plug and canceling your subscriptions to the local partisan rags. Starve the beast. I’ve even researched whether I could report the Bucks County Courier Times for littering on my property when they deposit one of their uninvited promotional copies on my lawn (still not sure the answer there). There are plenty of other publications and news sources out there that do a good job of reporting and analyzing the news.

Next is to show up at the polls and vote for pro-gun politicians in 2012. Our opponents are re-energized, and believe they can now beat us. I think they are counting their chickens before they hatch. They just don’t understand what a force our people can be when they get scared.

Human events covers a story about authorities in New York City busting honest folks for transporting guns through King Bloomberg’s domain. FOPA no longer really protects air travel through New York City, since it was ruled that the protections only apply to persons in vehicles.

UPDATE: John Richardson notes a bill that could enhance the FOPA transport provisions.