Eric from Classical Values takes the Philadelphia Inquirer to task and details some history a lot of people on the left would rather forget about.
Category: Guns
Interview With Shirley Katz
Ahab has an interview with Shirley Katz, the Oregon teacher who’s asserting her right-to-carry on her school’s campus in court. There’s some good info there that the main stream media wouldn’t bother to seek out. I think Ahab did a pretty good job here. Also, I’d like to compliment Ms. Katz on her choice of side arm.
Why Gonzalez is a Turd
Ryan Horsley has an excerpt from a transcript detailing Rep. Chris Cannon’s concerns over the ATF’s mishandling of the NFRTR that was raised with Gonzalez during hearings.
Henry Repeating Arms Relocates
Henry Repeating Arms Company, unbeknown to me, was located in Brooklyn.  Apparently they are moving to New Jersey.  I guess a bit of a step up in the gun rights world, but it makes you wonder why they didn’t go a little farther to Pennsylvania. Our taxes are lower than New Jersey’s, and there’s little danger of the state outlawing their product.
PSH at U of FL
TO: Deans
FROM: Dr. Patricia Telles-Irvin, Vice President for Student Affairs
RE: Protest Event Next WeekA national group known as Students for Concealed Carry On Campus, which advocates allowing students and others to bring concealed weapons to campus, plans an Empty Holster Protest all next week. Students who participate in the event are being urged to wear an empty holster to class in order to protest state laws and university policies that prohibit firearms on campus.
Neither state law nor campus policies prohibit carrying an empty holster, so anyone who participates in this event is within his or her rights. However, if any faculty member or student feels genuinely threatened, they should feel free to call the University Police Department. If you would, please pass this along to your department chairs and faculty.
Any bets on whether wearing holsters gets added to the student handbook as a verboten activity come next fall?
Bwahaha! The Tradition Lives
Nagant revolvers can be had for the cost of your Discover Card cash back bonus.  I decided to order one. Should be here Monday or Tuesday, since they typically will ship pistols overnight. Thanks Discover!
Changing Attitudes on Handgun Rights
Denise of The Ten Ring has a post up detailing how she believes the public’s views toward handguns has changed over the years.
Don’t Mess With Recycling Employees
Well, at least not in Philadelphia.
Robberies have made the recycling business so dangerous for David Geppert, shot two years ago during a holdup, that he gave his blessing to employees who said they wanted to carry guns to work. Yesterday morning, Geppert said he felt blessed that none of his employees at his Germantown facility was injured during a gun battle between a robber and two employees. The robber was shot and died.
Good show.
The Red’s Challenge
I feel bad that I haven’t linked Ryan in a while, so what do you think about taking the Red’s Trading Post Challenge? One of the issues we brought up with Glen and Ashley at the GBR was getting hearings on ATF abuses. I don’t know whether that’s something that would be possible to get out of Nancy Pelosi’s Congress, but letting them know how you feel can’t hurt.
The Biggest Issue in Gun Rights
What is the biggest obstacle we face in our efforts to preserve our gun rights? Apathy among gun owners is certainly a big one, but I don’t think it’s the biggest. In my experience, apathy can be easy to overcome once you get someone to understand what’s at stake, and what the other side is really trying to do. The biggest issue we face is that most people are simply completely unfamiliar with firearms.
A small minority are downright afraid of them. They are harder to reach, but they are a minority. The vast majority of people simply have little to no experience with guns, and don’t understand much about them, or the greater political issues involved. Combine that with a media establishment that’s only too happy to misrepresent everything about the gun issue, and you have a recipe for disaster.
That’s why I’m happy to read this:
The other librarians at work have found out about my new hobby. Some of them are curious, some are excited and wanting to join me at the range, but most are silent on the matter. My manager has been curious, asking questions about how it feels to shoot, if you need to be strong physically, if it’s loud, that sort of thing.
That’s a good start. If you want to know what I think the best thing folks can do for our movement, it’s get new people to the range. Demystify the totem that the media has made the gun to be, and make them see it for the tool that it is. If you take ten new people to the range, and only one of them becomes pro-gun, and if everyone did that, we just went from 4 million, to 8 million.
Just to illustrate what you have to deal with out there, while I was at the GBR waiting for someone with a key to come down and unlock the Hospitality room, we were sharing the hallway with the National Weather Association. One of the NWA chicks asks me, kind of shyly “What’s going on in there?” referring to our hospitality room. “You guys are gun bloggers? What is that about?” So I explain that we’re basically a diverse bunch. “Some of us are competitive shooters. Others of us blog about the political aspects of the gun issue. We talk about gear, collecting. All kinds of things.” She latched on to the competitive shooting issue “You mean like those clay birds?” I answered “Well, yes. That’s a shotgun sport. We don’t have any people who do that competitively here, but [Mr. Completely] is a steel plate and pin shooter” She immediately became curious as to what you would shoot a bowling pin or steel plate with, so I answered “Generally a pistol.” She seemed shocked by that: “Really?” Another NWS guys said “Oh yeah, you generally do that kind of stuff with pistol.”
Do you see how successful the media has been? She had no idea pistols were used in sport at all. I can promise you she had no idea that evil “assault weapons” had any sporting use as well. Now, I’ll be the first to tell you that we won’t win this on sporting uses. Self-defense is an important component of the debate, but when people who accept the sporting use argument don’t even know what they are, we have a long way to go.
Ignorance of firearms is, without a doubt in my opinion, our biggest obstacle.