Back from the legal seminar. Heeding God’s Call apparently decided they were going to protest, since I guess God doesn’t like Second Amendment law seminars. Throngs of people showed up, with tons of enthusiasm and energy. We were overwhelmed by their presence. Or not:
One woman is wielding a sign that says “Stop Shooting People,” which is a serious problem when you bring academics and lawyers together in one place. Perhaps they thought the seminar happening in the Ormandy Ballroom was just a clever cover for the arms bazaar that was no doubt occurring in the Mogadishu Ballroom on the next floor. But what was going on inside?
Clayton Cramer talking about the history of California’s Concealed Weapons laws. Seated to his right is Professor Nick Johnson of Fordham University, who had just given a talk on firearms and the black experience. Seated to the right of Professor Johnson is John Frazer, Director of Research for NRA-ILA who spoke himself, and also moderated the forum. Clearly very dangerous people who’d make a regular habit of “shooting people” if not for protesters holding signs.
Sounds great. I hope that you will be summarizing their talks.
Every morning I go into my yard and scream “Burble! Kurble! Furble!” five times at the top of my lungs. I do this to keep the lions away. My neighbor complains about the noise and says there are no lions in this part of the country. CLEARLY it is working.
That woman showed up with her “Stop Shooting People” sign, and none of the crazy gun nuts shot anyone. CLEARLY the sign worked.
With THAT pose, Mr Cramer is obviously telling a fishing story.
Are you sure the crowd outside wasn’t PETA or Greenpeace?
It does rather look that way, doesn’t it? For the life of me, I can’t remember what point I was making when I was gesturing like that. My Italian ancestry was coming out, I guess!
“Heeding God’s Call”. Yes, once again: if your religion calls upon you to oppose the right to self-defense, it is your religion that needs to be questioned, not the right.
The tragedy is that the alternative is to question what has gone so terribly wrong in Philadelphia’s inner city subculture.
Anyone else find it ironic they’re called “Heeding God’s Call”, when one of His Commandments mentioned not bearing false witness?
Well, since you asked: no. Religious people bear false witness all the time. Kind of to be expected.
Better question: why do so many people who say they’re Christians oppose the right to self-defense?
I’m not sure that there are “so many.” They tend to get pushed to the front of the demonstration by progressives, in the hopes that they will cause conservative Christians to change their position. On the flight back from Philly, I got to talking with a woman who was in Philly as a delegate from a Boise church to a Presbyterian Church (USA) convention–and when you found out that I was returning from speaking at an NRA event, she was wildly enthusiastic about it!
The current pacifist faction can be traced to the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), for reasons that are understandable and tragic, but are not reflective of Christianity’s history, which has always recognized a right to self-defense.
You are assuming that this crowd is intentionally making a false statement. I would not assume that. People that lose loved ones to gun violence desperately need something or someone to blame. (Survivors often buy a gun.) It is easier to blame an inanimate object rather than admit that the victim was drug dealer, or was shot by a gang member because inner city culture is terribly, terribly broken.
I totally missed the protestors when I had to leave. I feel cheated!
How much were those individuals paid to get out of bed, throw a t-shirt on over their clothes and stand lackadaisically outside an NRA forum for the morning?
A racially homogenous group of disinterested folks there.
I’m guessing they got $ and a pizza, and a cheap t-shirt.
What a farce.
Not defending where they are coming from, but, why do you believe True Believers — no matter how misguided — from their side are differently motivated than True Believers from our side?
I have, in my time, rolled out of bed at dawn to participate in “rightwing” protests that were equally silly and poorly supported. In fact, if you dug into our local newspaper’s archives, you could find a front page picture of me, holding a “Clean Sweep” broom and demonstrating — totally alone. (Actually, some local John Birch Society members came, but hid in doorways and tried to pretend they were looking in shop windows, until the cops left, after which they came out to buttonhole the remaining reporters about “Insiders.” And, one little old lady in a wheelchair came late, because she had to take a cab.)
Anyway, if I could get back every dollar I ever spent supporting silly shit, I could easily afford a couple new custom rifles. And I the amount of reimbursement I got (or that was ever promised) was Zero-Point-Zero.
That includes when I would drive 125 miles to Harrisburg to sit in with Republican astroturf group meetings. Of course, I did get free coffee. But I could charge against that the attendance fees at associated “conferences.”
Looking at their signs, Soros isn’t giving them anything.
They must be real pikers then, because a state manufacturers association used to send me classy material that would arrive in big, anonymous packages.
Wonder which god it was whose call they were heeding?
Mine said, “and let him who has no sword sell his robe and buy one.” – Luke 22:36b
Today, that sword would represent an AR-15 or the like, and the context was clearly HIS followers’ self-defense.
IMHO.
I wonder how they’d feel if I went up to them and ask them why they’re asking me to “Heed God’s Call” and protesting gun owners who may be atheist or polytheist?
Can you think of anything more insulting.