Category: Politics

Beware of Nonsense from Other Groups

Cemetery’s Gun Blob is new to the whole gun rights scene, so I’m going to offer him a bit of advice on his attending a NJCDL meeting last night:

But was interesting to learn, is that the NRA doesn’t have NJ on it’s radar, and it’s pretty much up to us NJ gun owners to take action.  NJ is such an anti gun state, the NRA doesn’t really have a vested interest since the lines aren’t clear.  There are Anti’s on both sides of the fence here, and by voting Republican can actually hurt you.  And by voting Democrat can actually help you.  There were a few people who said they were Pro Gun Democrats there.  NJ is it’s own beast I say, on so many levels.

Rule number one of gun activism is always take what other groups say about NRA with a grain of salt.  That even goes for a lot of state associations.  It’s not at all true that NRA doesn’t pay any attention to New Jersey: they do.  It’s just exceedingly difficult to win there.  New Jersey also has a good state association, even better than Pennsylvania’s, which doesn’t do donkey to stand up for gun rights over here.

But that’s not to say that the message about it being up to gun owners isn’t correct.  Mobilizing gun owners has always been something volunteers do.  Almost half of New Jersey’s congressional districts have no EVCs.  That means no one in those districts is working to help get pro-gun politicians in office, and anti-gun politicians out.  NRA does not ignore New Jersey, but they can only do so much if Garden State Gun Owners don’t stand up and do something to help.

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RFID Technology in Guns

Looks like there’s a bill in New Jersey.  I’ve been waiting for some clever anti-gun person to figure out that you can make gun owners lives miserable through mandated RFID tags.  Especially in a state like New Jersey, where gun ownership and sport shooting has been made so incredibly legally risky.

Imagine police being able to tell whether you have a gun in your car without having to search it.  Now imagine you get lost on the way to a match and pass a police car who gets a blip on his RFID scanner that the person in that vehicle is an evil gun owner.  Instant Felony charge!  You deviated from the most direct path.  Too bad for you.  Go directly to jail where you belong!

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Conspiracy to Destroy Preemption

Eight other mayors in Pennsylvania are planning their own local gun ordinances in contra to state law and the state constitution.  Preemption is a bedrock gun rights principal, and we will fight tooth and nail to preserve it.  A constitutional guarantee is meaningless if it can be infringed and questioned at will by local governments hell bent on destroying it.

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Is New York in Play?

Obama is falling in the polls in New York State.  I would imagine this latest financial crisis should help Obama’s numbers.  We’ll have to see.  Really, there’s no reason to vote Obama for economic reasons — he’ll ruin the economy with his tax and big government policies — but to be honest, McCain’s never particularly impressed me with his economic acumen either.

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It’s Reasoned Discourse Time

The Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate for Governor of Delaware, who’s a dyed in the wool gun hater, has a blog that allows comments.  Be polite.  Be concise, but let’s put some pressure on.  Let him know gun owners are watching.

Hat tip to Mike W of Another Gun Blog

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New Direction for the Libertarian Party?

Bitter asks whether Bob Barr is taking them in a new direction, to be spoilers for the major party candidates rather than being an outlet for the libertarian viewpoint?  I’m pretty sure Barr’s own interest in the race is that of a spoiler.  But will that make the LP faithful happy?  Doubt it.

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Fake To Hide The Ball

Ray Schoenke is running ads for Barack Obama, saying McCain’s plans are a “Fake to Hide the Ball”.  Well, Schoenke is certainly an expert on that topic!  Here’s the entire text of the ad:

This is Ray Schoenke.  I played football with the Washington Redskins.  Now I’m president of the American Hunters and Shooters Association.  It’s important to me that our next president protects our Second Amendment rights to own guns, and to defend ourselves.  Barack Obama and John McCain will both make sure we keep our guns.

But what about keeping our jobs?  Barack’s got a real plan that invests in creating jobs here at home and cuts taxes a thousand bucks for working families.  John McCain?  I saw a lot of cheap shots in my day, but McCain’s false attacks on Obama are just a fake to hide the ball.  His plans sells out American workers.  McCain will keep giving tax breaks to companies that ship our jobs overseas.  And he’ll look the other way, while China breaks our trade deals.  It’s the same old Bush playbook.  Look, when the coach loses eight years in a row, you don’t bring him back for a ninth season.  We just can’t afford more of the same.

Sounds to me like the Obama Campaign was more interested in Ray Schoenke’s professional football credentials than they were about the message of American Hunters and Shooting Association.  But this speaks to AHSA’s lack of seriousness as an organization representing hunters and shooters, that their president would go on the air shilling for a candidate on issues that are completely unrelated to their core mission.

Schoenke and AHSA are basically shills for the Democratic Party.  Nothing more, nothing less.  This ad should prove that to anyone who thinks otherwise at this point.  Be sure to tune in to Caleb’s show this evening for what I’m sure will be a lively discussion.

UPDATE: Bitter has more here on political surrogates.

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Being Heard Today

From Today’s Whipping Post:

H.R. 6842 – National Capital Security and Safety Act (Closed Rule) (Sponsored by Del. Norton / Oversight and Government Reform Committee)

The rule provides for 1 hour of general debate and makes in order the following amendment:

Childres Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute (60 minutes)

This essentially means Norton’s bill, that would just nicely tell The District that they should really think hard about complying with Heller, will receive a brief polite debate, and promptly be replaced by HR6691, that would actually restore the Second Amendment in The District.  After that, it will go to the house floor for a vote.

There has been some talk in the blogosphere that this effort is just political theater.  Well, in the sense that the chance of getting this all the way through is slim, it is.  But why discount political theater?  Most of the political discourse in Washington that people see is theater.  That’s not to say it can’t be useful.  So why proceed with HR6691 even though there’s little chance of actually passing it?

  • It gets everyone in The House on the record as to whether or not they support Heller.  They can’t just get away with saying “I support the Second Amendment” or “I have a concealed carry permit”.  They have to choose sides.  My Congressman, who runs around shouting the latter quote, despite his support for gun bans, decided he couldn’t afford to oppose HR6691.  That was a useful signal that he’s worried about the gun owner vote coming out against him.
  • The bill will now head to the Senate, where it’s most likely that Harry Reid is going to do everything he can to keep it off the floor to prevent Obama and Biden from having to take a stand on it.
  • We can now put the Blue Dogs, at least one of which has been running around being telling Montana gun owners that Obama has a great record on guns, in the position of getting behind a discharge petition to get it onto the floor no matter what Reid wants to do.  This is the same game that was played in the House.  We might also get to find out whether our own Senator Casey is, in fact, still alive.
  • You never know.  The bill might very well end up passing.  It’s an uphill battle, but it could happen.

So we’re in the position in 2008 where the Democrats really don’t want guns to be an issue.  That’s why Barack Obama has been running around telling everyone he supports the Second Amendment, and won’t take their guns.  We would really like guns to be an issue, because that will rally our base in an election year where people think other things are more important.

We have absolutely nothing to lose by pushing this bill, and everything to gain.  It will force Obama to take a position on Heller that’s more than just lip service.  You can bet he won’t be voting for any discharge petitions, and you can definitely bet he won’t vote for the eventual bill, and that will be one more club we can beat him with.  Is it political theater?  Absolutely.  But good political theater wins elections.

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Bad Choice in Delaware

Another Gun Blog points out that the Democratic candidate for governor this year is about as anti-gun as you can get.  Current Governor Ruth Ann Minner was a pro-gun Democrat, with an A-rating from the National Rifle Association, and who signed into law Delaware’s reciprocity bill.  Things in the First State could take a serious turn for the worse if Jack Markell is elected.

What’s always surprised me about Delaware is that it’s remained a largely pro-gun state, being pretty solidly blue.  Half a million of Delaware’s 864,000 residents are located in Democrat dominated New Castle County.  Things could get ugly in The First State.

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