It’s been a while since I updated on events with our Second Amendment Blog Bash planning for the NRA Annual Meeting this May 16-18 in Louisville, KY. We discovered this weekend that Glenn Beck will be the speaker at the Annual Banquet. There have been a few more registrants, which brings us up to thirty blogs represented. We have verbally heard that a few more blogs are probably going to be coming too, so we’ll keep you updated.
Georgia Could Gain a Seat or Two in House
It makes sense, since a lot of southern and western states are gaining population lost from the Northeast. Massachusetts is probably going to lose one congressional seat when the next census is taken.
Pennsylvania isn’t experiencing population loss, but we’re growing at about 1/4th the rate of the rest of the country, and, most importantly, the state is having difficulty keeping young people from leaving. In the long term, Pennsylvania will probably also begin to lose population, unless we can improve the business climate in the state. Our governor, who has never seen a tax he wouldn’t like to raise, certainly isn’t helping in this regard.
2008 Election Roundup
I agree that Congressman Paul got the shaft from Fox by not being invited to the debates. War on Guns is wondering why too. Drudge is reporting that Hillary may drop out of the race. That would leave the race a scrap between Breck Boy and Obama.
More Guns …
… less crime. Who would have thought?
UPDATE: Seems to work out alright in Memphis too.
I Guess I Could’ve Done Worse
Hat Tip to Ride Fast & Shoot Straight
NRA and ATF Reform
Bitter and I attended part of the Board of Directors meeting for the NRA this weekend, since we were in Virginia this weekend. Chris Cox’s report before the Board stressed the dire need for ATF reform, speaking about how far back this problem goes, and their strategy to fix it through congressional action. Also stressed were all the upcoming challenges we will be facing in 2008, which are numerous. I was also quite happy that he thought highly enough of our meeting with NRA folks at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous to mention that specifically in his report before the directors, given that we were a tough crowd.
The NRA isn’t a closed society. Any member can attend the Board of Directors meeting, though some items do tend to be discussed in executive session, with only board members and officers present. Of course, I’d be a liar if I told you it was exciting and riveting. Think of your local gun club meeting, only a lot longer, and with a lot more items to discuss and report on. More speeches too.
More on the New Jersey Issue
Armed and Safe doesn’t like the legislation either, but mentioned one thing I wanted to talk about:
The amendments also remove language specifying that the legal owner of a lost or stolen firearm who complied with the reporting requirements would not be civilly liable for any damages resulting from a crime.
Yep–the bill initially contained language that would protect the owner from liability stemming from his being the victim of a crime, but the legislators, in their infinite wisdom, removed that provision.
That’s actually a bit we wanted them to remove. Currently there is no tort that exists for a person being held responsible for the criminal misuse of property that was stolen from them. By removing liability on the part of a gun owner who reported a lost or stolen firearm, the legislature would have been implying a tort did exist for those gun owners who failed to report a lost of stolen firearm under this statue. Therefore a gun owner in violation could not have only been fined, but also could be sued by the victims.
Not too Late for New Jersey
The vote is today. Call your senators and ask them to oppose this legislation.
Gun Safety Is Back!
Joe is right that it’s old news, but I hadn’t seen it in the media for a while. Now it’s back just in time for the elections.
The families say they want to make sure guns are not allowed on college campuses. And they want lawmakers to require that everyone who purchases a gun in Virginia first go through the FBI’s instant background check system that blocks felons and the mentally disturbed. Although federal law requires background checks, it applies only to federally licensed firearms dealers. No checks are required when a private dealer sells weapons at a gun show. Fifteen states have closed what gun safety advocates call the “gun show loophole.”
Emphasis mine. Can you get any more biased than that? At least they were kind enough to call us gun-rights advocates rather than the “gun lobby”.
I don’t doubt that these folks are undergoing a serious grieving process over the loss of their loved ones, but none of the bills they are proposing would have stopped Cho from being a murderous asswipe. We have already fixed that problem. I feel for these people, but once they choose to enter a political scuffle, the laws they are advocating should not be beyond debate, nor should their position be given absolute moral authority. We should not decide public policy based on grief and emotions. The family members of Virginia Tech victims are advocating removing liberty from their fellow citizens, and that should create the utmost burden for them in terms of defending that position in the public sphere. A pity the Washington Post doesn’t seem to feel that way.
It Was One Year Ago Today …
… that Bitter said to me in a text message “You should really be blogging”, which got me started on this whole thing. Ironically the first post was about taking another girl shooting. A lot has happened since I posted about that. Wow. We’re at 2288 Posts, 8468 comments, 173,000 visits, and more than half a million page views, all in the last year. What kind of things am I proud of this year?
Well, starting to date Bitter is something to be proud of, though, hopefully no one hates me too much for taking her off the market. Hopefully everyone thought our April Fools Joke was funny. I was shocked our readers thought we had that bad a taste :)
I got people’s attention with a feature I called “Full Auto Day“, in honor of Congressman William J. Hughes, who ruined that bit of fun for all of us. That got a lot of people to notice me, and got me a lot of Google love, that is still coming in to this day.
There was the infamous Zumbo incident, where I think the new media demonstrated it had developed real power. That’s the point where I first noticed the anti-gun folks like to believe we take marching orders from the NRA. The NRA didn’t weigh in until after it was all over.
I got the Brady Campaign’s attention first here. Peter Hamm’s appearance later provided a lot of amusement as well. I helped expose one of their board members as a sock puppet.
Virginia Tech was an awful tragedy, that a certain anti-gun group wasn’t above using for fund raising. NRA, fearing threats from Democrats on new gun control, hijacked Carrie McCarthy’s NICS bill and turned it into something good for gun owners. Other groups saw opportunity to take NRA down a few pegs, and begin spreading nonsense about the bill. I was happy to refute much of that on more than a few posts.
Philadelphia City Councilman Jim Kenney telling me “F*** you” was one of my highlights of the year.
Bitter and I attended the NRA Annual Meeting and Exhibits in St. Louis. We got to meet a lot of good people in the pro-gun rights movement, like Dave Kopel, Dave Hardy, and Robert Cottrol. I found myself at one point sitting across from Joaquin Jackson. The annual meeting was where the idea that NRA and bloggers needing to work together more was hatched in a conversation between some bloggers. We didn’t know at the time that NRA was getting the same idea.
Which brings me to perhaps my proudest blogging accomplishment for the year was showing up at the fall NRA board meeting as Scott Bach’s guest, and ending up in a room talking to Chris Cox about how NRA could work with blogs. While the end result of this was not wheelbarrows full of cash coming our way, or bloggers getting marching orders from the NRA, Chris was kind enough to send out his Director of Grassroots and Media Liaison out to the Gun Blogger Rendezvous in order to get barbecued asked difficult questions by gun bloggers for an hour or so. The relationship with NRA has been progressing along nicely, and we hope to really further it with the Second Amendment Blog Bash in Louisville this May.
The year 2007 was pretty good for this blog. I am very thankful that you all read, comment, and support me in this endeavor. I hope you will all stay tuned in 2008, where we’ll have an election, and plenty of other activity. 2008 will be a nail-biting, pivotal year for gun owners, because this will be the year we either start settling this issue politically, or we begin the process of losing our gun rights, and probably any measure of a constitutionally limited government along with it.
Hold on to your seats folks, 2008 is going to be a bumpy ride.