Shall Not Be Questioned – Page 591 – The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …

CSGV Puts Pressure on Casey and Toomey

Ladd Everitt at CSGV puts out a press release trying to apply the same pressure to our Senators that is currently being applied to Scott Brown in regards to HR822. CSGV is pretty much outright lying about the bill by suggesting HR822 is “legislation that would force Pennsylvania to let individuals from around the country carry concealed, loaded firearms in publicâ€”even when those individuals have a history of domestic violence and would not qualify for a concealed carry permit under Pennsylvania law.”

It’s not exactly a lie, because they say “history of domestic violence,” and if you beat your wife, but have never been prosecuted for the act, this is technically true. But it’s certainly disingenuous. Anyone who’s been convicted of domestic violence will no more be able to carry under HR822 than they can today, which is to say they can’t. HR822 does not apply to people who are federally prohibited from possessing firearms. Period.

I really have to wonder how our opponents can live with themselves knowing that the only way they can win is to mischaracterize their opponents, and essentially lie. I couldn’t stay in a movement where the only way I could win is to do that day in, and day out. CSGV might be wise to put pressure on Senators in swing states, but their efforts ring hollow, much like poor Lord Helmet in the caption I have chosen for this post. At the least we’re forcing our opponents to spend money and grassroots energy they don’t fundamentally have. The only group I truly worry about is MAIG, who is doing everything right. They may be getting stronger for the next fight, but I doubt that is true of CSGV.

Crimson Trace Lightguard Review

The big problem with flashlights attached to your gun is that they make the gun bulky and heavy. Crimson Trace came up with a solution to that problem. The stairwell the light is illuminating in that review looks strangely familiar.

More on Gun Culture 1.0 and 2.0 in Clubs

Willshoot.com, who started the whole thread with his post here, has some more good points on the whole subject Gun Culture 1.0 and 2.0 in clubs:

The solution would be simple: vote the board out and remake the club in the image that you desire.

However, in practice, the issue is that the GC1.0 can make the environment so undesirable for members of GC2.0 that they simply decline to participate.Â If ranges weren’t so monopolized, it’d be easy for members of GC2.0 to start their own.

That’s one of the problems with the aging of clubs. If those clubs close, or go belly up, they won’t ever be replaced. We can’t easily make more shooting clubs, especially in urban and suburban areas. My own club was founded in 1958, at a time when this guyÂ was busy fueling the post-war construction boom, and transforming Bucks County from a more rural county with a lot of open space into this. Our club moved in the 80s, due to encroachment by development, and was relocated at the cost of the developer. It is highly doubtful that today, someone could find land to create a new club at a price anyone could reasonably afford.

Because of this, I think it’s important for clubs to change hands from one generation to another, so that they don’t die with their members. That is actually not that remarkably hard to execute a complete takeover of a club if you look at elections results. The reason it doesn’t happen is largely the following factors:

Most members don’t vote in club elections. This seems especially true of younger shooters who would be most likely to be brought up in GC 2.0.
Very few younger people have the time to serve as officers, or if they do have time, lack the willingness. A desire for change won’t do any good if you’re not able or willing to step up to do the work of running a club, most of which is mundane and unglamorous, and has little to do with a club’s cultural direction.
Younger GC 2.0 people are less likely to join clubs to begin with, or try out GC 1.0 shooting sports, which means many clubs have no pool of shooters who would even be interested in something different.
Many GC 1.0 are too old to do GC 2.0 run-and-gun tactical stuff and be competitive. IPSC and IDPA are more athletic sports than bullseye shooting, trap, or silhouette. Even if they don’t harbor any misconceptions or prejudices against practical/action shooting, they might not feel great about those kinds of competitions competing match and range times at their club, and may resist those kinds of matches.

So if you have a local club, my advice is to join. If you want to run a more practical-style match, take your match idea before the Board. Be prepared to make concessions to deal with their concerns. Once you have a match, you’ll start building a constituency. Once you have a constituency, you’ll get people engaged with the club, and from those people, you can draw candidates for the club’s Board.

My club has 1100 members. Even at that size, 50 people showing up on club election night could elect an entire slate of new candidates if it was committed. Most clubs are smaller than mine, and the only practical match I know of around here was drawing 60 or so people even in the dead of winter with snow covering the ground. Change is difficult, but it is not impossible. If you want to change a local club, it can be done, but you need a plan, and you have to be prepared to make concessions. Maybe shoot from ready instead of holster, or limit the run-and-gun action in your early stages. This might mean your matches won’t be sanctioned for a while, but as long as people are still having a good time, and you’re drawing people in, that’s all that matters. If they are dedicated to more of what you’re offering, you’ll start flipping club leadership quickly, and once you start doing that, you’ll find yourself needing to make fewer concessions.

More Odd Grassroots

I have observed previously that our opponents seem to be whipping up some real grassroots opposition to HR822, as evidenced by the high rate of signatures in opposition to the bill. The problem is, I’m not convinced that our opponents are capable of whipping up this kind of opposition, and it has to be coming from somewhere. I have found some more evidence that something is certainly very odd about the opposition here. Take the continued success of this latest Twitter hash tag campaign featuring Newark, NJ Mayor Cory Booker. Except I’m unconvinced this campaign has its genesis on Twitter itself. Take a look at some of the re-tweeters:

This person only has a handful of Tweets. 30 to be precise. This Twitter handle also only follows 5 people, none of whom tweeted about Booker’s video. This is not the only example I’ve found. I’ve found numerous examples, such as this person, this person, and this person. These are not people who spend much time, if any time at all, on Twitter. I believe, however, that they are real people. I’m not suggesting someone is creating users for the sake of astroturfing, since several of the accounts are personalized. So the question is, who’s prompting all these people who normally aren’t Tweeting to suddenly Tweet? Is it Cory Booker’s magnetic personality? Is MAIG really growing as a force?

One thing is certain, the campaign MAIG has put together is doing everything right. Under Booker’s video, you’ll note all the standard social networking buttons. The site is very well done, and it’s pretty clear they are using professionals. At some point we were going to push far enough to fire up the other side. HR822 is pretty clearly it. Whether the opposition they are whipping up is going to be thinking about HR822 on election day is another matter, but it does seem MAIG has been successful at gaining some grassroots support that can at least make some noise on their issue. The big question is whether they are getting help from some of the major left-wing outfits like MoveOn, or Obama for America. It seems hard for me to believe this much activity is happening just on people sharing Booker’s video in a viral manner.

What Happens When You’re No Longer Needed by the 99%

The Occupy Charlotte statement from their consensus group kicking out a member is an eerie reminder of a classic Twilight Zone episode – “The Obsolete Man.”

Sister Toldjah has done a great job and covering her local Occupy group on Twitter, and the result is finding this gem – an illustration of what happens when the Consensus decides you are no longer tolerated.

We the people of Occupy Charlotte and the General Assembly thereof, wish it to be hereby known that Thomas C. Shope has been exiled from the Occupy Charlotte movement and is to no longer be used as a source for communication and/or donations. He has been separated from this organization due to his consistent and willful actions against the will of the people and the decisions of the General Assembly. Any and all communications to the media and any donations from the people that support us, are to be made and accepted by and from the members of the occupation at 600 E. Trade Street in Charlotte, NC.

At least one person came on to question this decision since it doesn’t seem very inclusive or 99%-ty. Their response came right out of the Twilight Zone. I’m not kidding. All I could hear is the opening from “The Obsolete Man” playing in my head as I read through their declaration. When people question the decision or the statement, the response from the organizers is that they need to move on, there’s nothing else to see here. There may be legitimate issues with the guy, but their manner of “kicking him off the island” is beyond creepy.

Click to read the full statement that seemingly came right out of the episode. Continue reading “What Happens When You’re No Longer Needed by the 99%”

Obama Administration Takes a Position on Second Amendment

The Supreme Court must be interested in the case of Masciandaro v. US, which involves a man who was convicted of violating the gun ban in National Parks by having a loaded pistol in his vehicle. The Supreme Court asked the Obama Administration for its opinion, which you can read here. Lyle Denniston has a very good article about the opinion over on SCOTUSblog.

While recognizing there is a right to carry a firearm outside of the home, the Administration’s position is that this is only deserving of some form of mid-level scrutiny, and that a ban on carry is not among those regulations which could be deemed unconstitutional under this standard. The Administration is asking the Court here to deny review.

Some Excellent Self-Defense Advice

Go visitÂ Misfires and Light Strikes for some excellent self-defense advice.Â I’m no kung-fu master, and nor do I have time to become one, but I’m an advocate of having options up and down the force spectrum. The best response for someone throwing a punch at you is physical force, and often that force can be something like defensive spray. If you shoot someone trying to fist fight you, your chances of going to jail are pretty high, and even if you’reÂ acquitted, the trial will certainly ruin your life.

New Jersey Gun Laws Explained

Hat Tip to Cemetery

Construction Job Lost? Build Yourself a Gun Range!

You have to love a story about a family that saw the bottom fall out of the construction industry and then used their skills to build themselves a commercial gun range.

Brad Paul recalled that while waiting for a lane at an indoor range, his father — a shooting enthusiast who had been on a shooting team in the Navy — looked at the crowd and said, “We need to build one.”

“It wasn’t an easy decision though,” Brad continued. “We went to 14 states over the course of a year and visited 50 indoor gun ranges. We asked every one of them questions like what they would have done different.”

They started building in December 2009 and opened the following July.

Because of their construction background, they built the building and everything in the showroom themselves — cabinets, floor displays, counters and display cases.

The full article is worth a read. They talk about having to run a retail operation. The reporter talks to customers about why they come out to shoot. It’s really quite amusing.

Plus, I love that the headline has to send CSGV & Brady folks into absolute fits: Family finds success with gun range

Senate Race Against Casey Suddenly Gets Interesting

I’m working on a review of all the races Pennsylvania gun owners have to worry about in 2012, even though we’re still weeks out from Election Day 2011. The Keystone State will be an interesting place to be. Even though it’s been solidly blue for presidential elections, Obama’s popularity is in the toilet here.

We have a Senate race where the incumbent’s staff can’t even confirm whether the Senator is actually alive. There’s even a Facebook group dedicated to figuring out if Sen. Bob Casey is breathing. And yet, just to keep things interesting, a possibly dead Senator with a reputation of not even showing up to do his elected job as part of an unpopular party still couldn’t attract any top-tier challengers. D’oh.

The last couple of weeks have seen that change, and now we have two who I would classify as top-tier for fresh blood. They haven’t held office before, but they have solid networks in place to put together real campaigns. One ran in a heavily Democratic district for Congress and lost by pretty narrow margins in 2010, and the other didn’t have a chance to shine given that the GOP incumbent in his district suddenly “un-retired” from the race and pushed him out. Specifically, they are Tim Burns and Steven Welch.

Burns had an A rating from NRA in his campaign against John Murtha’s former chief of staff. While Welch never had the opportunity to be graded, he does have a “2nd Amendment” section on his issues webpage. (Bob Casey previously had an A rating, but that could change based on his behavior in office.)

I still can’t say much about Congressional races since we’re losing a House seat, and no one knows where the district lines will be drawn. The likely result will be two A-rated Democrats pitted against one another in a primary. Boo – at least based on the gun issue. The state races will also be big. We have at least one gun-unfriendly candidate for Attorney General – a race that will impact Pennsylvania’s ~600,000 concealed carry license holders. So, yeah, 2012 will be an interesting year for gun folks.