Dennis Henigan finds this self-congratulatory article appealing? Both sides are guilty of the exact same things they accuse the other side of, they just manifest themselves in different ways. People are, for the most part, irrational emotional beings. As much as some might want to claim their side is full of thoughtful, rational, people, can I promise you if your movement isn’t composed of Vulcans, that’s not the case.
Category: Guns
How Brady Manipulates Its Win Percentage
Howard Nemerov takes a detailed look at how Brady manages to twist the numbers to declare victory even after disastrous elections. The truth is that both sides endorse quite a large number of safe seats each election year. The big difference is NRA took a lot more chances this year than the Brady Campaign did. NRA lost in 50 elections this year, 33 of them Democrats. Only twenty of them constituted any loss for gun owners. And finally:
Five new House Republicans earned NRA grades of C or D, and two were Brady-endorsed. It’s curious that “GOP operatives†complain about the NRA’s lack of loyalty to them, while ignoring their own betrayal of the Second Amendment by supporting anti-rights politicians within the party.
Read the whole thing. Gun control took a beating this election, regardless of what issues may have actually motivated it. The Second Amendment has won this election.
Election Results from NRA’s Perspective
John Richardson takes a look at NRA’s assessment of this past week’s election. They maintained an 85% win percentage in the House. I would note that this was with the incumbent friendly policy. This reflects closely our incumbent re-election rate for 2010, which was, last I checked, about 85%. This is historically quite low. In fact, the last time it was this low was 1970. Even when people are as pissed off as they are now, incumbents still win elections.
Ask Our NRA Lobbyist
On Friday we had some interesting comments in my thread about Castle Doctrine being dead. I spent a few hours at the end of the day on Friday and on Sunday talking to some folks at NRA about how they could communicate better with opinion leaders in this issue. Not wanting to just hurl criticism, I offered to do a Q&A session with John Hohenwarter, NRA’s Pennsylvania Liaison, and they agreed.
The way is will work is I’ll open the comments for readers to ask questions, and I’ll compile the best ones, add a few of my own if need be, and send them to John. My only request is to keep the questions limited towards issues we’re facing in Pennsylvania, rather than federal or general issues. Other than that, the field of questions is wide open. I’ll let this thread go for a few days before compiling the questions.
You Either Trust the People, or You Don’t
Bill Whittle opines on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms:
Quote of the Day
Cemetery, upon attending a high-end antique gun show:
One thing that annoyed me, was the sense of elitism. I’m not talking about the hoity-toitiness of balls out antique collector’s, but the sense that somehow *they’re* safe, since they’re not involved with scary *assault weapons*. Sorry to tell ya bub, they were assault weapons in their day, and if gun was to come, those $50k rifles would be heading to the smelter to become rebar.
It doesn’t matter what you shoot. The real question is whether you can be drawn away from the pack and preyed upon individually. That’s what the whole “assault weapons” business was about. Antique gun aficionados should recall that back before the last redistricting, around 2000-2002 timeframe, the GOP redistricted Congressman Joe Hoeffel out of a seat. Hoeffel was a proponent of a bill that would treat antique firearms the same as any other firearm. Let’s not also forget New York State’s attempts to do the same.
Anyone who shoots anything, that projects anything downrange at paper breaking velocities, thinks they are safe at their own peril. We are all most decidedly in this together, or our opponents will try to break us apart and kill us separately. That includes hunters too.
Follow the Money
Anyone curious as to where Americans United for Safe Streets is getting and spending it’s money need to look no further than here. Glenn Reynolds has noted they are an astroturf group. He’s not kidding. Look at the donation numbers and tell me that group isn’t Mike Bloomberg donating his money and doling it out to favored New York and DC based consultant and advertising firms. Look who else is giving too. Abby Spangler, 500 dollars. Colin Goddard’s Dad, 200 dollars. Josh Horwitz, 200 dollars.
What faith and dedication these people have in their cause! Mayor Mike is willing to donate serious money, but the rest of the gun control intelligentsia? I think it’s a testament to their lack of faith, I could raise more money for our cause by providing a link to NRA’s political efforts here, and encouraging people to donate 30 bucks. I have to question whether Mayor Mike is the only one who has any faith in the future of gun control. And even then, I’m pretty sure half a million to Bloomberg is the equivalent to change under the sofa cushion for most of us. We win because our third stringers are more dedicated than their first stringers.
All the Mayor’s Men
Bitter does a rundown of how gun control advocates fared this election in Pennsylvania.
UPDATE: Bloomberg’s group AUSS is similar to the Bradys, in that they are declaring victory.
SAF Looking for Blog Love
I am positively anal about keeping my theme clean, and in the proper color scheme, which is why you don’t see too much in the way of side bars or icons on this blog. But in response to SAF’s request I have added a link to the side bar, which I actually already thought was there, but I never look at my links.
Denying 2A Rights for Habitual Drunkards
New Jersey law can prevent someone from keeping and bearing arms because of being a “habitual drunkard.” The Hunterdon County Democrat explains how this works in at least one case. Is such a restriction constitutional? I think the way this has been handled by New Jersey should be.
No one should lose or be denied a right in a case where it’s an arbitrary prior restraint applied by the police, or a mere administrative determination. But conceptually it’s difficult to see how this is much different than prohibitions against people who have been involuntarily adjudicated mentally defective. Provided the right cannot be removed except after due process through a court proceeding, and provided the prohibition lasts only as long as the condition, it’s hard to see under what grounds it differs from the prohibitions against the mentally ill.