Politics – Page 203 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Getting Rid of POC Systems

There’s been talk among pro-gun voices in Pennsylvania about eliminating PICS, the state point-of-contact background check system. It looks like there’s an active effort in Colorado to do just that. It’s being touted as a cost saving measure, because the state would save approximately 1.7 million dollars by relying on the federal system. In this time of tight state budgets, the money argument is probably the winner. The only difficulty we have here in PA is that our PICS system is being used for a number of different reasons, including conducting background checks for teachers. That complicates the issue a bit more for using the cost saving argument, at least here in Pennsylvania.

The main reason for doing this here in PA, is that the state system has more downtime than the federal system, and when the system is down all gun sales are halted, and we revert to the Brady waiting period. Since very few dealers are willing to do default proceeds after the waiting period, this essentially halts all gun sales for the duration of the outage. The other reason is that it would interfere greatly with the State Police using PICS to keep a registry of all guns sold in the Commonwealth. The legislature intended to prevent this eventually, but the State Police found a legal argument around it. If you’ve bought a gun in the past decade, they know about it. We’ve had individuals have guns seized from them in traffic stops because local policeÂ erroneouslyÂ believe the State Police database is a comprehensive registry. This has been difficult to remedy legislatively.

Militias Less Popular than Socialism

More Americans have negative associations with the word “militia” than the word “socialism.” And it’s not like socialism is a popular idea among Americans. I doubt this matters to most militia leaders, except maybe the ones who are getting better at public relations, but it would seem that for a vast majority of Americans, preaching against socialism from the militia soapbox is just going to drive more people toward the socialists.

There’s a thread within the movement that would like to suggest we’ve moved this issue from the fringes. I think that’s largely nonsense, because it mischaracterizes political struggle. We’ve moved the movement forwards because we’ve been very successful at reframing our ideals and ideas in a manner that the vast unwashed masses can relate to. Instead of talking gun control, we switched the subject to criminal control. Instead of speaking of preserving hunting, we speak of preserving the right to self-preservation. Instead of talking about jailing ATF agents, as Larry Pratt did at the rally last week, we speak of reforming the agency.

It’s not as emotionally satisfying as righteous battle against the dark forces of evil on the other side, but it’s effective. The vast majority of voters are not ideological. They don’t make up their minds until right before the election (the PA Dem primary is two weeks from now, and 1/3rd are still undecided), and there’s vast political ignorance among many voters. Winning in politics is bringing these folks along, little by little, either into your camp, or at least not in opposition to you. This allows your issue to work its base in order to swing close elections. If you want to do this, you need to reach them with a message that doesn’t turn them off. What this poll shows is the militia ideas turn them off.

Chest Beating

So much in politics can really be explained as the same reason a Gorilla beats his chest. It’s a display, intended to scare rivals or assert dominance. Since it’s primary season we can expect to see a lot of that. Paul Helmke’s latest bit on the Indiana primary, which is today, falls into that category. Helmke notes the NRA favored candidates are expected to lose, noting:

Tomorrow’s results in the Indiana GOP primaries could tell us how strong the anti-DC mood is with the GOP in the heartland, and whether the NRA’s opposition or support makes any difference.

For another perspective on the Indiana primary race, you can look at Jim Geraghty’s summary here. My feeling is that it’s a three way race, which always complicates things. The pro-gun vote will be split between two candidates. But this is far from a race where there’s a wide open lead. NRA generally won’t waste money on a lost cause, so this will indeed be interesting to see. All three candidates have wide open leads over Brad Ellsworth, so in this instance, the primary is pretty much the general election for theÂ Hoosiers.

Look for Brady to play this card often. They are beating their chests to show that NRA is not so tough. This will be fertile ground too. NRA is going to be getting behind some pro-gun Democrats who are likely to lose their seats because of their votes on other issues. Oddly enough, the 2010 elections I think will not be a good year for NRA, in terms of their win percentages. The biggest loss is likely to be Harry Reid, who is the only reason we’ve accomplished anything in the 111th Congress. His likely successor is either Dick Durbin of Illinois or Chuck Schumer of New York. Either of those two leading the Senate, we better hope we don’t replace these pro-gun Dems with squishy Republicans. I hope all the Hoosiers get out there today to vote.

Getting You Fired Up This Week

Here’s a video to get you fired up for the upcoming elections. The focus is on the special election for John Murtha’s former seat out in Western Pennsylvania.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNrhLRerypg[/youtube]

I swiped it from Jim Geraghty who adds:

But the music and editing is superb; you keep waiting for Paul Giamatti as John Adams to appear and declare that the Continental Congress has approved this message.

If you’re so inspired, you can go lend a (financial) hand to his campaign. He’s got to win this seat twice in 6 months.

Why Does Lenin Greet Capitol Visitors?

During the Right to Keep & Bear Arms Rally in Harrisburg, I tweeted about the mystery of Lenin’s face sculpted into our Capitol doors. Of course, I assumed it wasn’t really Lenin, but damn if it didn’t look just like him.

Doing a bit of VPC-endorsed intensive research, the busts in the door are of people associated with building the Capitol. It doesn’t provide a list, but does mention a few names. One initial possibility was Gov. Samuel Pennypacker, though I didn’t think that they really looked alike. Based on this list, it looks like that was an incorrect guess.

However, if my guess based on that list is correct, the bust is of E.C. Gerwig, the secretary to Governor William Stone. I didn’t find any pictures to compare him to Lenin, though.

On an interesting side note, Sebastian noticed that one bust had a hinge, so we assumed it hid a handle or lock. Sure enough, that bust (no photo, sorry) is of the Capitol’s architect and hides the keyhole.

Civil Collapse

One can hardly talk about the topic without mentioning Philadelphia. The one thing a Philadelphian can be proud of is that he is not from Detroit.

Politics of Personal Destruction

MikeB in the comments raises a point about why people bother tracking down information on others, and making efforts to “out” people. He seems to believe this is wrong, and in many contexts I would agree with him. I think it’s a worthwhile discussion to have as to what tactics are out of bounds, and which are in bounds. I think that’s a tricky topic, because the line is pretty fine. But I can discuss my feelings on the matter.

If you read professional agitators like Saul Alinsky,Â they speak on this topic as well, and Alinsky thought everything was on the table if you didn’t have a more ethical path available forward. That’s actually a high standard, if you think about it, but I think outing HorwitzÂ meets that standard. The other side must have thought that too, which is why they used it against John LottÂ when he was caught doing it. I agree that was fair game too.

There’s really three levels I think activists are entitled to live their lives on; their political lives, their personal lives, and their private lives. In a political struggles, one’s political life is fair game. Their personal lives can be too, depending on how much of an effort there is to keep it private, which is the part I think we should have an awful prejudice against violating. Let me give some examples.

A few years agoÂ I smeared a Board Member of CeaseFire PA with something in her personal life. But it was something in her personal life she made no real attempt to keep private, as it was on an easy to find public web site, under the same name she practiced her activism with. I thought it was fair game, and wanted to make a point to her about tolerance. This was on the heels of outing another CeaseFire PA board member we had strong evidence was aÂ vile troll, posting racist garbage on web sites pretending to be a gun rights advocate. In this case he did make an attempt to conceal his identity, but his tactic was so vile, disgusting, and destructive to our cause, that he really left no choice other than to expose him once we had all gathered enough evidence.

Outing Josh Horwitz alleged sock puppet is attacking his political existence, not his personalÂ existence, and certainly not his privateÂ existence.Â He’d be using said sock puppet to further his side on this political struggle. His identity is well known within the issue, and he freely associates his name with it in his role as a paid gun control advocate. His sock puppetry is directly related to the issue, only crosses into his personal life in so much as it reveals him to be an angry bastard, so it’s within bounds.

Now if a gun control advocate, even a professional one, had been found having discussions with other consenting adults on, say, an S&M forum, and made a reasonable effort to keep that private, or keep it separated from the issue, exposing that would be out of bounds. Back to the previous example, if I had been forwarded a private e-mail from Ms. Stein about her involvement in MUFON, or seen her at a meetup, I would not have used it. I would also argue someone using an alias (not a sock puppet) in an attempt to keep their personal and political livesÂ separated, and their private life private, is also out of bounds for outing.

But using personal or private information in for a political purpose is completely different from using it purely for harassment or intimidation purposes, which is always wrong, and often unlawful. I think everyone, even gun control advocates, are entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy and fair play in their personal and private lives. We should proceed on that assumption moving forward.

ACLU Sells out Free Speech

Looks like they are caving on campaign finance reform, something they’ve long opposed:

The organization will now accept “reasonable” government limitations on contributions to candidates. The ACLU doesn’t say what “reasonable” means, so the government will doubtless supply the definition. This will inevitably benefit those who are already elected and disadvantage challengers. Indeed, for 35 years “reasonable” limits on contributions have demonstrably helped incumbents and suppressed insurgent candidates.

So ACLU gets on board with helping further entrench the Democratic Party. What a sad things they’ve become. I used to respect the ACLU even when I didn’t agree with them, but that’s passing.

Bryan Miller Now Using Open Carry Fundraising

Found by Cemetery at New Jersey Hunter forum. Some gems from Bryan:

“These single-minded and fearful people care so little about public safety that they seek to make our state and country an armed camp. And, it is no coincidence that many follow the harsh anti-democratic rhetoric that attracted such as Tim McVeigh.”

“We have all heard of the volatile blend of racism and anti-government hostility emanating from so-called â€˜tea parties.â€™ Mixed in is a rebellious strain of pro-gun extremism that led to yesterdayâ€™s events. In many state, â€˜open carryâ€™ activists eagerly wear their guns to Starbucks and other retail establishments, caring not a whit about the intimidation of and danger to others. Itâ€™s all about them and their petty fears and anti-social ideas.”

We’re the ones that use fears and anti-social ideas? Pot — meet kettle. This is classic fundraising throughÂ fear mongering. Both sides do it, but they like to pretend they don’t. And it doesn’t hurt, I guess in Bryan’s world, to throw in a side of arsehole with your big plate of hysteria.

Is Reapportionment Good for Gun Owners?

I put up a quick hits post this morning on PAGunRights with various federal election stories that will impact Pennsylvania gun owners, including this piece that notes the Keystone State has lost more Congressional seats than any other state in history. An astute reader took note, and made a compelling argument that even though we might lose a seat, it may not be bad for gun rights.

States like Texas, Arizona, Utah, Florida, Georgia, etc. are usually (not always) sending pro 2nd Amendment representatives to the House and states like New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, etc. are quite the contrary. …

Some of the other states that are losing a Rep are mixed bag of ratings but in general, it seems as this reapportionment would be a good thing for pro 2nd Amendment issues.

He noted that this is a theory, and it is correct as a theory. But damn it, real life may get in the way, or it could make his observation 100% spot on. The unknown factors will be state elections.

The Pennsylvania Concern
We’re most likely to lose a pro-gun seat. Regardless of which party controls the state House & Governor’s Mansion, the logical elimination in Pennsylvania is Murtha’s old seat. It doesn’t matter which party wins the special election to replace Murtha, they won’t be an entrenched incumbent. It’s also probably easier to absorb that corner of the state into the various district around it – it touches 4 other districts & is close to 2 more. That would allow the suburban districts around Philadelphia to simply “grow” west since we are likely the source of any growth in population.

Murtha’s seat is pro-gun, regardless of party, so that’s a loss right there. The expansion of seats in suburban Philadelphia will make it harder to hold on in close races, especially for two pro-gun votes in Reps. Charlie Dent & Jim Gerlach. But since it’s all politics, the logical thing to do might be ignored, and my assessment could be 100% opposite of what they actually do during reapportionment.

Those Other States
While culturally, many of the states slated to gain seats are pro-gun, most have portions that are most decidedly not friendly to our rights. Texas will likely see the most growth around Houston because of all of the Katrina evacuees, and those votes will not be in our favor. Arizona could be good for us, but even it has some anti-gunners in office. I am venturing to guess that their growth is mostly around Phoenix which has also been the source of many state lawmakers who get in the way of a pro-gun agenda.

Georgia’s growth, I assume, is probably centered around Atlanta which may be hit or miss depending on where the seats go. Nevada and Utah should, generally, be pretty safe. Though it really depends on where the transplants to Nevada are coming from – if it’s a bunch of Californians, that may not be good for us. Florida also produces as many anti-gun votes as pro-gun votes. Again, it depends on where their growth has been during the last 10 years.

The Solution
Voters in all of the states slated to gain a seat have to put pro-gun majorities in their state legislatures this year. Whoever has control of state houses after the November elections will decide who has power for the next decade. Gerrymandering is never a pretty sight to see, but it will happen. The question is whether we’ll have any kind of say in the process.

Here in Pennsylvania, we’ll benefit more by putting Republicans in power. The voters in Texas, Georgia, Arizona, Florida, Nevada, Utah, and other states will need to examine their own states to see which seats need to flip to seal majorities in their legislatures for pro-gun lawmakers.

My other tip is to not get lost in the federal battles alone this year. While it is important to flip Congress, because of reapportionment, you cannot afford to ignore your state representative and senate seats, either. This is not a year to sit on your ass. Write checks or start walking precincts.