Guns – Page 280 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Don’t Assume You’re Safe

Plenty of gun owners haven’t contacted their lawmakers because they believe they are nice, safe red states. Well, my mom called yesterday and wanted to read me the letter she got from her red state lawmaker – Senator Bob Corker – that just, well, didn’t seem very convincing to her. It seemed weak to her, and I tended to agree. We laughed at the fact that whoever put the letter together – assuming it was an intern – didn’t actually put all of the promised material in the letter. The problem is that the promised material was supposedly a list of ways that Bob Corker has defended the Second Amendment. As my mom put it, “Does that mean he doesn’t actually have any record to defend?”

Interestingly, a commenter was also left with the same empty feeling from this otherwise A rated Senator:

Bob Corkerâ€™s letter was very disappointing. It was an overt form letter that could have easily been sent as a response to either a pro-gun or anti-gun letter. And it referenced an enclosure regarding the Second Amendment that it did not include. Its only saving grace was that it states support for the ownership of firearms for self-protection, without offering specifics.

Personally, I would suggest calling either the local district office or the DC office and letting Senator Corker’s staff know that you’re unhappy with the response because it does nothing to indicate he actually plans to stand up for gun owners, and they don’t even care about the issue enough to read their own letter or include the materials promised. Basically, let him know that you’re really not thrilled with this unprofessional and rather unsettling response.

This post isn’t just about Bob Corker’s fairly loathsome response to his constituents. It’s a reminder that you can’t assume you’re safe just because you’re in a red state. Keep up the pressure if you haven’t written, and make sure that any unsatisfactory responses from the lawmakers are returned with another polite contact letting them know how disappointed you are.

Here in Pennsylvania, we’re dealing with a bit of the opposite. People are saying they don’t feel like they need to contact Sen. Bob Casey because he already came out in favor of a gun ban. They don’t see any reason to bother anymore. I say they need to contact him precisely because of his sudden change in position on gun rights. If lawmakers in a position like Casey’s are bombarded with pro-gun letters, emails, faxes, and phone calls, then we could easily kill his enthusiasm for his new position. There’s a big difference between a position that a Senator will carry water for the gun ban issue in a state like Pennsylvania and having him go to the leadership and say they have his vote, but he’s not willing to make this a priority issue or do any heavy lifting for them. I don’t know for sure that he’s willing to back off from his support, but I do know that silence sends the message to him that he can campaign on hating guns all day and night for the next six years and gun owners won’t lift a finger to stop him. (For what it’s worth, Bob Casey’s staff is even more incompetent on constituent service than Bob Corker’s office appears to be.)

NSSF has some advice …

… for a new shooter.

David Keene Interview

The Daily Caller did a lengthy interview with David Keene, President of the NRA:

Keene has been a pretty decent spokesperson on this issue. He knows policy very well, and understands how the political process operates.

What Could Be Coming Our Way?

Chris in Alaska has a look at Nathan Haddad. He’s looking at a seven year prison sentence for each magazine, and he had five of them. I anxiously await someone from the gun control movement to explain to me how locking this man away for 35 years is going to benefit public safety. Fines are enough to deter honest people, so why throw the book at people like this? I’ll tell you why. Because they hate you. They hate guys like Mr. Haddad. He’s a gun owner. He going to get what’s coming to him.

Gun Owner Legislative Fashions

When a gun lapel pin isn’t enough, there’s always an NRA tie and “self-defense is a human right” button to help constituents figure out which side of the Second Amendment debate you support. According to the reporter uploading the shot, this is the suit of Minnesota Rep. Tony Cornish, a retired police officer who has an A+ rating on our issue.

Barry’s Gun Picture

I’m kind of with SayUncle on Skeetgate. I can’t get too worked up over it. Everyone knows the guy isn’t a shooter. The real problem is that Obama was trying to disingenuously signal that he’s really one of us, which strained credulity even for the sycophantic press corps. Note that the shotgun being fired is compensated, which is a new “evil” feature. It’s not just about flash hiders anymore.

I’ll give John Richardson the last word on Skeetgate, because that’s just funny.

And So It Has Come To This

I don’t ever want to see a spectacle like this happen in my country again:

Via John Richardson, who catches “Who are the police at war with?” A damned good question to all the fools who keep asking why weapons of war belong on our streets. Easy answer, they aren’t weapons of war. If they were, the police would have no business carrying them.

Will the GOP Cave on Gun Rights?

So ponders Glenn Reynolds, and it’s something that’s been on all our minds, I think. Michael Walsh thinks that it’s a hill to fight on, rather than a desk to die under. It was always going to be a difficult proposition, especially since many people normally with us, in the days following Sandy Hook, started lecturing gun owners how we were just going to have to cave on this magazine thing. Like hell we need to.

So why is it that the GOP, who are willing to sacrifice whole election cycles to talk about “legitimate rape,” and espousing absolutist views on abortion that are far outside the mainstream, can’t seem to bring themselves to stand by us when the going gets tough? I mean, we don’t have debates within the GOP that an abortion up to 26 weeks ought to be legal and protection, but at 27 weeks, well, that’s just cold blooded infanticide. But yet you get discussion that 10 rounds is enough for anyone to protect themselves, and 11 rounds is for nothing more than mass murder. They are willing to take the absolutist position, at the cost of disastrous election outcomes, for anti-abortion advocates, but not for us. Why?

I think the problem for our movement is that gun owners, in general, seem to be a lot better at tearing things down rather than building them up, and you need to be able to do both to be successful in politics. Once you find yourself in a race to unseat a politician who turned on you, you’ve already kind of lost, and if you fail, you’ve definitely lost. It’s far better to get someone in office and keep them on your side. In the 2008 and 2010 elections, when we were working phone banks, were the only ones in the game who were there specifically representing the gun issue. Values voters, even in this area, are ubiquitous among the volunteers we talked to on breaks. If you want to know why politicians go to the mat for these people and leave us hanging under the sword of damocles when the going gets tough, this is why. Values voters are everywhere at election time, and even in this area seem to represent the core volunteers on campaigns that are either actively sympathetic, or who have indicated they will be sympathetic. Gun owners are numerous, and highly motivated by fear and anger, which makes us very effective at negative reinforcement. We suck at positive reinforcement, and unfortunately, positive reinforcement is probably just as important, if not more important.

Gun Control Details in Maryland

The first round of hearings will be in Annapolis this Wednesday, February 6th. Maryland Shall-Issue has the details. They are looking to pack the hearing room, and to make the hearings run overtime. The key is to make it painful for them.

Object of Fear, Object of Hate

The more and more I am looking at the new civility, as we go through yet another national conversation on guns, the more convinced I am that our original supposition that the prime driver in the gun control debate is a visceral fear of guns is completely wrong. Jeff Cooper coined the term “hoplophobia,” but I think it’s turning out to be way off the mark. Not that I don’t think there are people out there who are afraid of guns, but in the national debate, they aren’t who we’re dealing with.

Take a look at this article from Twitchy on sexist heckling of a woman pro-rights supporterÂ as just one example, or this catch from Miguel of the Coalition to Stop Gun Ownership’s Facebook page. Clayton speaks of the fire eaters. Something I read earlier from Michael Bane sort of tied all this together for me. They aren’t afraid of your guns, they don’t hate your guns. They hate you, or to quote Michael Bane’s article, “It’s not the guns they hate…it’s us.”

I think this is absolutely correct, and everything we’ve been seeing in the media and from the gun control organizations seems to back that up. It fits with the article I did earlier on the cultural changes the coastal elites are seeing being the root cause of this latest backlash. We’ve been too successful for our own good. As long as gun ownership were confined to old, fat white guys (OFWGs), they were content to tolerate it. The changing face of gun ownership worries them, not because of a fear of guns, but for fear and loathing of the people who enjoy them, who increasingly are looking like them. If something isn’t done soon, they may have to take the opinions of gun owners seriously. Gun control is a movement of old white people, but they aren’t going to go down without a fight.