Shall Not Be Questioned – Page 1003 – The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …

MAIG Media Campaign Hits Texas

Richard Ward, the Mayor of Hurst, Texas, wants everyone to know that he’s an NRA member, and a proud member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. In it, we see familiar language:

Unfortunately, the NRA has spent the past month attempting to bully mayors, including me, to drop out of this effort to have a consensus discussion about guns. They have sent hundreds of thousands of misleading postcards stating this coalition is “anti-gun” and is seeking to “regulate gun shows out of existence,” along with several other untruths and misleading statements.

Where have we heard that before? Unfortunately, not all these mayors are going to see the light and bow out gracefully. Many of them will need to be forced to leave MAIG by forcing them to leave office. I wouldn’t worry too much about getting a pro-gun activist mayor to replace your MIAG loving incumbent — really all we need is someone who agrees to leave the issue alone. Because of preemption in most states, guns are not generally a local issue. In fact, I would consider using that against the mayor. Find local issues people care about, and question why the mayor is spending time and energy on an issue that’s more of a state and federal issue, rather than what’s important to your town. Back to Mayor Ward:

I fully support the rights of law-abiding citizens under the Second Amendment. What I donâ€™t support is criminals getting their hands on guns. The coalition is for enforcing existing gun laws, increasing penalties for gun criminals and closing gaps in the gun background check system.

No one supports criminals getting guns. We have a system of laws in place that make criminals obtaining guns unlawful already. MAIG isn’t just recommending closing gaps in the background check system, they are supporting a bill that will effectively shut down gun shows. Â Have you read it, Mayor Ward? Are you aware MAIG supports rationing guns to law abiding citizens? Is that the kind of measure Texans will support? Are you aware that ATF and the Fraternal Order of Police are against the measure MAIG supports to open up trace data? Are you aware that Mayor Bloomberg has interfered in the prosecution of actual criminal gun traffickers because it served his political purposes.

Mayor Ward includes an e-mail address at the bottom of the article. Â Perhaps some of my Texan readers can respectfully ask him whether he’s really thought about this issue.

Just Got A Wii

Because Nintendo slashed the price of the Wii, Bitter and I decided it was time to get one. Who knew you could blog on it? It’s tedious but doable. Now to play.

UPDATE: I’m a fan of the Wii Play tank game. Bitter and I were also having fun with the boxing game, which gives opportunity to say “I’m going to beat you like I don’t want guns anymore!” Nintendo Wii, making domestic abuse a fun game since 2006!

CeaseFire PA Coming to MAIG’s Defense

This is a PDF of an e-mail that was circulated by CeaseFire PA earlier in the week. It comes from a source I know to be reliable. Â It’s titled “Standing Up and Fighting Back Against the NRA.” Â Let’s take a look:

There’s only one way to confront a bully – stand up to him and speak the truth. That’s what CeaseFirePA and its allies are doing across Pennsylvania in response to a smear and misinformation campaign engineered by the NRA.

So here we have Joe Grace, Executive Director of the gun control group, CeaseFire PA, admitting to MAIG as an ally. Â Yet we’re constantly told by the media and the Mayors themselves that MAIG is not a gun control group!

I think it’s abundantly clear by this point that the emperor has no clothes. Now we’ve established a relationship between not one, but two gun control groups operating in Pennsylvania in conjunction with Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Â Do Pennsylvania MAIG Mayors want to continue arguing that they are not standing along side a group promoting gun control? Â Is this what defending the Second Amendment and the Pennsylvania Constitution is in their book?

Brady Mailing to Help MAIG?

What this blogger is reporting would certainly seem to indicate that:

Through theÂ Brady Center I have learned about an organization of over 450 mayorâ€™s who are trying to rid their cities of illegal guns. Amazingly, the NRA is targeting many of these mayorâ€™s and spreading lies about the organization. All of the mayorâ€™s of Ohioâ€™s major cities belong to this group.

Except, as we’ve well established both here, and at our other grass roots site, it’s not a lie. They are Â gun control group, and we’re discovering new connections to the Bradys regularly these past few days. How is it irresponsible for NRA to point out to their membership that their mayor is a member of a group that promotes just about every issue the Brady organization does?

The Real Effect of AB962 in California

Arizona Rifleman summarizes how it’s going to affect ammunition purchasers in California. It’s not too late to call the Governator to ask him to veto this bill. It’s a good thing they got that ammo shortage in Reno squared away, because I predict there will be more ammunition moving throughÂ Donner Pass than was moving on the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the height of the Vietnam War.

Quote of the Week

From SayUncle, on discovering Qaddafi was allowed to roam around New York City with his heavily armed cadre of women:

So, in NYC, even tinpot dictators are like you and me only better.

But Bloomberg isn’t anti-gun. Â Just ask Mayor Baughman. He’s only against illegal guns. As long as it’s just your guns that are illegal. Qaddafi’s S&M guard, not so much.

Not Just Good Advice for Kids

Don’t talk to strangers. I don’t answer my door for anyone I’m not expecting. It’s not really a safety thing so much as someone showing up at my door unexpectedly usually isn’t someone I want to talk to.

Bitter on Cam & Company Tonight @ 9:20

Bitter will be on Cam & Company at 9:20 to talk about our investigative journalism into Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Â Tune in at NRANews.com or on Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 144.

UPDATE: For those who missed Bitter, you can find the segment below. This is her first time appearing on NRA News representing Snowflakes in Hell. Â She has been on before representing The Bitch Girls, and using her real name for other interests, but I think she did very well representing my blog. Here’s the segment:

A Living Constitution & The Right to Bear Arms

The Pennsylvania Constitution is an interesting beast. Â Most of us are well aware of its right to bear arms provision, which is one of the strongest worded for an individual right. That’s what we will examine here, through the various revisions of the Pennsylvania Constitution, and there have been many:

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has been governed by five constitutions between 1776 and 1968. Before that, the province of Pennsylvania was governed for almost a century by four successive constitutions, referred to as The Frame of Government.

The first Frame of Government 1682, also known as Penn’s Charter, was written by William Penn while he was still in England, and was repudiated by Pennsylvania’s Colonial Assembly. In the preface, Penn stated his political philosophy on government: “Any government is free to the people under it … where the laws rule and the people are a party to those laws.”

None of the four Frames of Government that defined Pennsylvania’s colonial Quaker government had any right to bear arms provision. That had its start in the Constitution of 1776:

XIII. That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; And that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

In the Constitution of 1790, the right to bear arms provision was changed to:

Sec. 21. That the right of citizens to bear arms, in defence of themselves and the State, shall not be questioned.

The Pennsylvania Constitution would undergo it’s next major revision in 1838, slightly changing the wording by changing “citizens” to “the citizens”:

Section XXI. The right of the citizens to bear arms, in defence of themselves and the State, shall not be questioned.

Move to the Constitution of 1874, you get some punctuation changes:

Section 21. The right of the citizens to bear arms in defence of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.

That language persisted through the Constitution of 1968, which is the current constitution the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania operates under. Pennsylvania has a living constitution, and multiple generations of revisions and conventions have chosen to preserve the right to bear arms as part of it. I would think that to even a living constitutionalist, this has to mean something.

Time to Put My Money where My Mouth Is

With all of our coverage of Mayor Bloomberg’s work with the Brady Campaign to protect and promote anti-gun local politicians, it’s time to keep up the pressure. Last month I made a donation to NRA that was designated for their media programs to turn up the heat through the media. I guess you could say that heat has been appropriately raised. Bloomberg’s numbers are down, mayors are giving us dirt on his questionable practices of how they were unknowingly signed up for the campaign, and his professional staff have been outed as Brady Campaign representatives.

But it’s clear that Bloomberg is digging in, and we need to do the same. So with that I’ve picked two programs for donations to help NRA keep fighting this battle.

The first is obvious, it’s the Institute for Legislative Action in recognition of their postcard mailing and political work on the effort to get more mayors to leave the coalition. This is fundamentally a political fight because these mayors may be the next crop of regional, statewide, and federal gun control leaders.

The second donation goes to the Freedom Action Foundation. This new Foundation fund is focused on non-partisan and non-political fundamental outreach that can ultimately support the other fights. The money donated to the fund will help identify those who aren’t registered to vote and show them why it’s important. If we’re going to oust these mayors from office, keep them from climbing to higher political office, or swaying federal and state lawmakers, we need to make sure more gun owners are registered to vote. You’d be surprised if you checked voter registration records how many gun owners are not registered to vote. But, once registered, the likely voter rate is quite high. So if we can get these men and women signed up, we can hope they get involved with ILA to find out what’s going on in their districts.

If you want to turn up the heat on these mayors and other politicians, I hope you’ll choose to give to one of these funds. Donations to ILA are not deductible, but donations to the Freedom Action Fund are.