Now there’s a petition at the White House site calling for the defeat of HR822, started by Philadelphia’s police chief, and it’s way ahead of ours. Nearly all the signatures are from California, which makes me wonder if the this was put out to a very large list. I questioned whether the Brady Campaign can have that kind of impact, which makes me wonder if OFA is using some of their reach. This was launched October 11th, and it already has double our number of signatures? I’ve been around this issue a long time, and I’ve never seen our opponents display that kind of grassroots power.
I’m not saying the signatures are necessarily bogus, but someone is a lot more powerful and with more reach than our opponents is either promoting this, or someone is playing games. Either way, we have to get our game on and counter this.
UPDATE: Judging from this, it looks like MAIG is behind this drive, and they are pulling out all the stops. This is quite good for us, because it means that our opponents have pulled out all the stops just to deal with our little guerrilla petition drive. It’s worth noting that NRA won’t throw its weight behind a White House push until there’s a bill on his desk. Surely we can think of other ways to spread our opponents thin as the debate on HR822 really heats up?
BTW, if this is all MAIG driven activity, that’s further evidence they are the real deal, and will be supplanting the hecklers at Brady, CSGV and VPC as our primary, and most dangerous opponents.
UPDATE: At the rate new signatures are being added, I’m really curious what method is being used to promote this. A quick search of the Internet only reveals the letter from Michael Nutter. Maybe they are hitting up people at the anti-gun range, and asking them to sign.
UPDATE: Bitter thinks it might be they are using e-mail lists, perhaps ones they rented or purchased. If you see one of these in the wild, please forward it to me.
When HR822 makes it though the House, it will be a miracle if it sees the light of day in the Senate without a bunch of 94AWB crap being tacked on, assuming it actually makes it to Barry’s desk there is no way he’ll sign it. Harry’s mission is make sure the president does not take a hit for this one and it never gets out of the Senate.
Why are they shooting for 25,000 and we only are aiming at 5,000?
Looks like the White House upped the threshold to 25,000 for petitions. I think it’s only because ours is old, so it’s still using the legacy 5000 signatures.
I love how they’re all for state’s rights now. Were they for state’s rights when the fedgov decided to leave the issue of concealed carry in national parks to the states?
If they are all about states rights, I guess they are OK with the various states that passed “Firearms Freedom Acts”. LOL
Looking a little more closely at the site, I’m going to clarify my assumption that they are using an email list. I’m going to venture a guess that someone on the left has started collecting the contact information for people they have successfully gotten to sign the White House petitions pages. Given that if you’re signed in, you can so easily click a button that just says to support it, it’s basically going to have the closest to 100% return you can ask for on a mailing list.
I would not be shocked if they got this out that kind of list and so there was no real “investment” for these folks other than clicking on a button, maybe two, to “sign.”