Guns – Page 322 – Shall Not Be Questioned

What Pennsylvanians Have to Be Looking out For

We’ll be dealing with Kathleen Kane for the next four years. It’s a safe bet all our reciprocity agreements with other states, if not pulled out from entirely, will at least be revisited to deal with the issue of Pennsylvania residents being able to carry on a foreign license. This will destroy most of our potential carrot for dealing with the problem of Philadelphia abusing its discretion preemptively.

Here’s the other catch: we have two years to fix any issues that come out of the Attorney General’s office. Corbett is wildly unpopular. Unless he pulls a rabbit out of his hat, he’s toast in two years when he’s up for re-election. The Democratic Party has abandoned any pretense of being for gun rights in this state, and is highly unlikely to put up a pro-gun candidate for Governor unless there’s a strong internal push from pro-gun Democrats to moderate the left-wing of the party on this issue.

It gets worse. As many of you may have heard, Kim Stolfer is very sick, and while I expect FOAC to continue, Kim is a tireless bulldog for the issue, and not replaceable. In addition, the Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsman’s Clubs, another group that’s traditionally been able to turn people out to Harrisburg when needed has been in disarray since Melody Zullinger got married and moved out of state. We also continue to shed hunters in Pennsylvania, and a lost hunter is often a lost gun owner. I know Gun Culture 2.0 people like derisively label hunters as “Fudds,” but any time I’ve been to Harrisburg, it’s hunters who show up. Fewer hunters means fewer advocates.

So where does that leave us? It is my contention that our lines have been broken. While we are not in retreat currently, we soon will be. The question is whether we do a tactical retreat, fall back, regroup and push forward again, or it ends up being a rout. That’s largely going to depend on what we’re willing to do, and how many people are willing to step up. Writing your reps is well a good, but it will take more to push back what’s coming. Defending gun rights in a deep blue state with a major city full of leftists will not be easy, but it can be done. Just ask folks in Washington and Oregon. But will we? Or will we become New Jersey?

A Former Bloomberg Gun Control Ally Breaks Probation

One of Mike Bloomberg’s allies in Mayors Against Illegal Guns who only left the coalition when she had to resign from office when convicted of multiple crimes is in the court system again. After reaching a deal with prosecutors, she’s already in violation of her probation.

Court records show former Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon has been charged with violating her probation on theft and perjury charges.

Dixon, a Democrat, resigned in 2010 after she pleaded guilty to lying about gifts from her former boyfriend, a developer who received tax breaks from the city. She was also convicted of stealing about $500 in gift cards donated to the city for needy families.

That’s right, Bloomberg’s gun control project had him working with a mayor who stole gifts for families in poverty, and even when the court allowed her probation, she still couldn’t keep herself out of trouble. I guess this means we need to give his project a new nickname – Illegaler Mayors Against Guns.

Stocks Rally on Election Outcome

Believe it or not, I don’t actually get excited by this news.

I saw an awful lot of reasonable folks on Twitter last night talking about how they are going to the gun store to stock up or just getting a gun for the household. These aren’t crazy or bad people, they are just concerned about the continued state of the economy and how, should the well of other people’s money dry up, there could be a rising crime rate. They are also concerned about the future of the courts and how many gun control laws are coming now that Obama doesn’t have to be accountable to voters anymore.

So, yeah. Still, it says what it says. The folks investing in these companies are in it to make money, and they clearly see at least a short-term future for making money in guns. (h/t to Peter for the tip to look up the stock prices)

The Louisiana Victory

The ballot measure adding a firm RKBA provision to Louisiana’s constitution has passed handily, with 75% support. Dave Hardy notes, “With ‘shall-issue having succeeded everywhere it’s likely to, and some places where it wasn’t likely, this may be the next wave.”

I think it needs to be, because the likelihood Heller and McDonald are overturned is much higher now than it was yesterday. In addition to getting stronger protection at the state level, we need to grease the machine for a Federal Amendment should the Supreme Court remove the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights. I think Pennsylvania would be a worthy state to try this in, because to be honest, I think gun rights is politically doomed in Pennsylvania if we don’t have strong protection from the Courts.

UPDATE: For those who want to know, our process is that an Amendment must be passed in two consecutive sessions of the legislature, and then voted in the affirmative by the people.

NRA’s Outreach to the Undecideds

Adage has a really good profile on NRA’s recent campaign expenditures targeting undecided/low information voters in swing states. Here are some highlights:

[NRA has] invested upwards of $11 million this fall in TV, radio and online ads (not including a direct-mail and phone piece) aimed at undecided voters in the usual-suspect list of swing states that includes Nevada, Colorado, Wisconsin and Virginia. A hefty 32% of that budget has been allotted for digital, including pre-roll video ads, full-page interstitial ads on news sites like denverpost.com, and page skins on Pandora, according to Brad Todd, a partner at the Republican media shop On Message Inc., which is handling the buying in electronic channels. …

[I]t’s suburban men who aren’t active hunters or shooters but who agree with the NRA philosophically or on the grounds of self-defense who are the focus of the ad campaign, which entered full throttle in October and will continue through Election Day. A decision was made to invest heavily in sports content and to mostly eschew news, a departure from the tack taken by Priorities USA and Restore Our Future, the super PACs backing President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, Mr. Todd said.

“We believe that premium content matters for undecided voters because they don’t seek political news,” he said. “If they were political news seekers, they likely wouldn’t be undecided in October.”

Emphasis added by me. I just have to laugh about it. Low information voters are both annoying and a source of comic relief for those of us who follow politics. Hell, I had to raise an eyebrow at the woman wondering out loud this morning why we needed two lines – one of which was much shorter than the other. She didn’t even know that they were for two different precincts. I informed her, but I’m not sure she knew what a precinct was, she just kind of said “ah” and went quiet. But back to the topic of NRA spending, this is the breakdown compared to the campaigns in their October spending:

During the week of Oct. 15, for example, the NRA’s TV mix for the swing-voter campaign was 78% sports, 12% late-night (centered on the likes of David Letterman and Jay Leno), 7% prime time and just 2% news. Meanwhile, data Mr. Todd pulled for Obama backer Priorities USA for a week in October shows 40% of TV spending going toward morning programming — which suggests a focus on women — and that sports accounted for roughly 1% of gross ratings points purchased. Estimates for Romney backer Restore Our Future show spending more evenly balanced across times of day, but only 14% of GRPs going toward sports, Mr. Todd said.

There’s more detail in the story, so go read the whole thing if this sort of thing interests you.

We’ll probably be talking more about some of the things that NRA has done to really create a GOTV structure independent of parties and individual candidate campaigns this year that both Sebastian & I think has real promise at keeping the Second Amendment in the minds of voters who lean our way.

They Can Harmonize

Hey, NRA members… you’re racist! Put this crap in the realm of feel good nonsense that doesn’t amount to a hill of beans when it comes to making phone calls, knocking on doors, and getting people out to vote:

CSGV: Against the First Amendment as much as the Second

CSGV tried to have Examiner.com censor Kurt Hoffman, a number of bloggers stood up for his right to speak. A free exchange of ideas is what healthy free societies support. I’ve had my issues with the III percent philosophy, which I have not been shy about criticizing on this blog, but I absolutely believe they have a right to speak and publish on their viewpoint. This is yet another desperate attempt by CSGV to silence dissenting opinions.

I read Kurt’s post which started all this hubbub, and as best I can tell he told people to read a book. I will forthrightly back people’s desire to publish and read materials, even controversial or potentially dangerous materials. The book Das Kaptial contains ideas that are responsible for the deaths of millions of people in the 20th century, but I’d still suggest people read it. Does that make me a marxist or violent left-wing revolutionary? The adult thing to do in these situation is to counter speech with more speech. If you don’t agree with the insurrectionist idea, understand what it really is, and speak out against it in a serious manner. But that’s not what the straw men builders at CSGV have chosen to do; they have chosen to attempt to silence and intimidate people who stand up for our rights and freedoms.

Canadian Long Gun Registry Destroyed

Good news for Canadian gun owners, but there’s still a dispute about Quebec registrations, and that is sticking around until that dispute is resolved.

While the then-governing Liberals sold the registry to gun owners as a minor, reasonable bureaucratic nicety, they also had the bad habit of trotting it out in public as a sign of their governmentâ€™s commitment to public safety and ending gun violence. You canâ€™t blame the people who had to register their firearms for feeling like the government was treating them as mass-shooters in waiting. Or, at the very least, a political punching bag.

That’s one of the primary things that motivates my opposition to gun control, because in fact, they do think we’re all mass-shooters in waiting. It’s patently obvious from their rhetoric that’s the case. But I don’t think they can solicit donations being nice to gun owners. The reason all the anti-gun groups have become so hateful is likely because that keeps the checks rolling in from those looking to buy a stronger self-image at the expense of looking down on others.

Canadian gun owners are well within their rights to thank the Tories for scrapping the hated registry while still demanding changes â€” clarifications and improvements, mostly â€” of Canadaâ€™s gun laws. Clarifying safe storage laws and rationalizing the classification system that divides guns into non-restricted, restricted and prohibited groups (with different regulations for each) would be a good place to start.

It is very important for Canadian gun owners to build on that victory, and not just go home and savor the victory. Canada will likely never be like the United States in terms of gun laws, but it could probably be better than it is today.

LEO Cover for Anti-Gun Groups in Minnesota

The retiring police chief in Minneapolis is going to lend his name to the anti-gun cause. Every once in a while you get a true believer among police brass, and I guess this guy is one. Joan Peterson must adore him.

“I think, basically, he will be a resource on gun policy … and give feedback on legislation,” Martens said. “He has always been a voice for preventing gun violence.”

He’ll likely be someone they trot in front of the legislature or TV cameras every time they need an authentic law enforcement voice to tell the public how bad whatever bill X or Y that expands Second Amendment liberties is. Let’s just hope we can keep Tim Dolan very busy with that line of work.

You Mean Like When Hurricanes Hit Florida?

CSGV is apparently unaware that hurricanes making landfall is a regular occurrence in some parts of the country, like Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, and North Carolina. All of these states have “weak” gun laws by CSGV standards. Category 1 hurricanes making landfall in these places might dominate the news cycle for a day or so, and then the media moves on.

But while we’re on the topic of defense, CSGV acts like there are no guns in New Jersey or New York. I can assure you there are, and the media has been reporting on such if you care to dig.

A sign outside a home in Long Beach, LI, summed it all up for storm weary New Yorkers. It read, â€œLooters will be shot by local vet.â€

In the mean time, I’ve been keeping in contact with a few people in the Garden State who’ve been without power, but nonetheless sufficient armed. Good people armed in the wake of large scale natural disasters like this does more to prevent violence than it does to foment it. A lesson that is totally lost on Mayor Bloomberg, who is refusing help from the National Guard for the 5 Boroughs, 3 of which were utterly battered by this storm:

â€œWe donâ€™t need it,â€ Mayor Bloomberg said on Wednesday during a press update on the cityâ€™s ongoing Hurricane Sandy cleanup. â€œThe NYPD is the only people we want on the street with guns.â€

So for Bloomberg, even the guns wielded by our National Guard are undesirable. And how many of your towns have signed onto this radical and un-American agenda? You know what that sounds like to me?

Good people need to be able to defend themselves in the wake of events like this. We will bring the Second Amendment, true Second Amendment right, and not the nonsense Mayor Bloomberg disingenuously claims to support, to the people of New York. In this struggle I believe we will ultimately prevail. But a lot of that depends on next Tuesday, and who gets to pick the next several Supreme Court justices.