October 2012 – Page 7 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Brady Fails Post-Debate Response – Again.

We all know that the Brady Campaign made up their own history of the first Presidential debate by talking quite elaborately about questions that weren’t asked and answers that weren’t offered. You’d think after a big flub like that, they would learn to just stop and read before things go out the door on a deadline.

Brady Applauds President Obama For Supporting Solutions to #Gun Violence. Thx Nina Rodriguez for asking the question! bradycampaign.org/media/press/viâ€¦

— Brady Campaign (@bradybuzz) October 17, 2012

The press release doesn’t make any improvements:

Brady Applauds President Obama For Supporting Solutions to Gun Violence
Thanks Nina Rodriguez for joining the national conversation Brady has led for solutions to gun violence

Brady Campaign President Dan Gross today released the following statement today in response to a question about gun violence solutions being posed during the second presidential debate at Hofstra University:

â€œSince the massacre at the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, the Brady Campaign has been leading a national conversation asking the presidential candidates to offer solutions to gun violence.

We applaud Ms. Rodriguez tonight for joining this national conversation by using her question at tonightâ€™s town hall to press President Obama and Gov. Romney for solutions to gun violence with assault weapons.

Who is Nina Rodriguez?

According to the video they link (and what I wrote down myself during the debate), the woman who was allowed to ask a question was named Nina Gonzalez. So, either Nina Gonzalez has a secret gun control organizer identity of Nina Rodriguez we didn’t know about (entirely plausible now) or the Brady Campaign is just that damn sloppy. (Oh, wait.)

(h/t David Lawson on the possible Code Pink questioner tip, and yes, I have screen shots for when Brady decides that making high school amateur mistakes every single time they deal with presidential policy debates is too embarrassing to let stand.)

The Not-So-Subtle Sparring in the Gun Control Community

I guess Bloomberg’s new hire is all about going to for the jugular when it comes to insulting different gun groups that aren’t signing his paycheck. This is the not-so-subtle “screw the incompetent ones” tweet of the night directed at anti-gun groups like the Brady Campaign and other smaller organizations that jumped on board with the Lehrer campaign for the last presidential debate:

Proud that @maigcoalition‘s efforts to #demandaplan led to a question about gun violence at #debate, but there’s plenty of work to be done

— Stephen Barton (@scubarton) October 17, 2012

Stephen Barton’s Twitter bio opening line: Policy and Outreach Assistant at Mayors Against Illegal Guns (@maigcoalition)

Yeah, I guess MAIG is not afraid of offending the other groups for their utter inability to get a gun control question asked during the only debate that was pure domestic policy two weeks ago.

In the meantime, the Brady Campaign isn’t willing to give any credit to MAIG’s efforts – whatever they were – because they say it wasn’t someone like them or their friends in the media, tonight was all about the little average people. (You know, those little average people from the solid blue state of New York in the Congressional district represented by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, the voice of anti-gun hysteria in the House of Representatives. Those little average voters who are just like your neighbors on national tv getting their hair done.) Their take:

DID YOU NOTICE that it wasn’t a professional journalist, experienced moderator or expert pundit who finally asked the presidential candidates about guns?

It was a concerned citizen – an average American.

And it will be everyday, concerned Americans who will keep this dialogue going.

In other words, their version is that it doesn’t matter what Bloomberg’s group is claiming since it’s not really about politically-connected people and competence to achieve a simple goal during the first major policy campaign launched by the new President of the Brady Campaign…

So, giving the gloating by MAIG and the “pretend it’s all about little people, not people more connected than us” spin by Brady, who wins in the gun control movement tonight?

The New Old Direction of the Brady Campaign

I pulled out just a couple of minutes of quotes from the Brady Center event yesterday featuring retired SCOTUS Justice Stevens that focus on the Brady future.

First, you have Dan Gross assuring people that they aren’t embracing any kind of newfangled change on their issue, but going back to the old ways of Brady. What kinds of things does that really mean?

Well, you have the pre-name change days when they were calling for complete bans on handguns and ammunition. The pre-name change period was also the last time you had a non-politician running the organization. (Paul Helmke [2006-2011] was a mayor and Michael Barnes [2000-2006] was a former Congressman.) Obviously, the Brady Campaign has come full circle on that front by hiring a non-politician who has no experience working on any serious policy front and his entire background was only in one very anti-gun city where he never had to worry about concerns of law-abiding gun owners whose rights may be trampled.

Based on the remarks of his new legal top dog, Jonathan Lowy, that return to the old ways that made them great seems to be advocating for repeal of Heller. I mean, come on, “…the Supreme Court had the audacity to hold, over Justice Stevens’ dissent with three of his colleagues, that the Second Amendment recognizes a right to have handguns in the home…”? That was a not an opinion that was outside of the mainstream of American society. It really sounds like they want to go back to pre-Heller days in their advocacy strategy as opposed to taking the Helmke talking point that confiscation was off the table and now they could still talk “controls” as opposed to “bans.”

I also included the announcement of their “new” legal project. It’s basically an effort to round up names of lawyers willing to do pro bono work for them. In other words, finding people to do take their cases – and those of anti-gun governments – for free. Now, I realize that the pro-gun side has utilized pro bono work on many of the Second Amendment cases, and its so incredibly useful because there are some damn talented attorneys out there practicing law in other areas to pay the mortgage. However, I just wonder if the Brady Center had to formally establish this as a “new” concept and formal program a) in order to have something positive to say in their annual report, and b) because it’s a free way to find more workers given their recent financial concerns.

A Bit on NRA’s New Media Efforts

NRA is running a Magpul raffle on Facebook. Obviously you’re not paying anything to enter the raffle, but you’re giving them your contact info, which helps increase NRA’s reach. They are also, with the upcoming election, they have announced a new Facebook App, which is roughly the social media equivalent of a bumper sticker, in that it’ll dress up your Timeline banner. I give NRA a lot of crap for technology disfunction, but this is a pretty good effort, and innovative. Certainly you don’t see any of the gun control groups doing anything like this.

Our Friends of the NRA Raffle

For those who bought tickets for our Bucks County Friend of the NRA 1911 raffle (and we thank each and every one of you who did), we did have our drawing last night for the three 1911s, and I am pleased to report that someone who got their ticket through our blog won the Kimber. This makes sense since we sold about 1/3rd of the 200 tickets in the raffle though the blog. In the interest of privacy, we won’t announce the winners names, but we will announce the winners had ticket numbers 25, 87, and 129. I thank everyone who played, because you really made an impact. As a new Friends of the NRA Committee, we have certain fundraising goals each year, and because of you all who entered, we exceeded that. Without you, we would have come in under our goal.

Our dinner, plus this raffle, allowed us to raise approximately $7600 for the NRA Foundation, half of which will stay in Eastern Pennsylvania, where it will be used to fund grants, most of which are related to youth shooting programs. Remember that every kid who learns to shoot, and learns proper and safe gun handling makes the anti-gunners cry, and that’s worth the price of entry even if you didn’t win.

We may do another raffle next year, or possibly one head of our dinner in spring. It has yet to be determined by our committee.

Shedding More Heavy Weights at the Brady Campaign

Today’s background “music” for Sebastian and I is listening to the C-SPAN airing of the Brady Center’s lunch with retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. I noticed an interesting tidbit when Dan Gross introduced Jonathan Lowy as their legal rockstar. I couldn’t help but think that was a bit disrespectful to the organization’s top lawyer – Dennis Henigan.

Then, I realized that we had not heard from Dennis in quite a while. His HuffPo blog hasn’t been updated since August even though he typically updated it about once a month. More importantly, when I did things like click on the name “Dennis Henigan” on the Brady Center site, it went to a general news page with no articles by or about him. He also wasn’t on the biographies page even though the Brady Center certainly his domain since he worked on legal issues as opposed to legislation.

A little Googling later, and I see that Dennis Henigan has left his employer of 23 years without so much as an announcement from the organization thanking him for his contributions. He’s now working with Peter Hamm at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

So, it’s very interesting to see these changes given what Dave Hardy posted about their finances of recent years.

PLCAA in New York Courts

Earlier this month a New York appeals court overturned the dismissal of a lawsuit against Beemiller, Inc, the maker of the Hi-Point 9mm, which is being sued because of criminal misuse of their product. The lower court, correctly, cited the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. Law.com has a very good article with some background. John Richardson has more, including an NRA News interview with Steven Halbrook. The actual opinion cites the exceptions to the PLCAA as a reason for allowing the case to go forward, particularly the text which allows, “an action in which a manufacturer or seller of a qualified productÂ knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing of the product, and the violationÂ was a proximate cause of the harm for which relief is sought.”

The complaint is against the dealer, the distributor, and the manufacturer. The case is actually quite interesting. The dealer in this was licensed from his home, and did business at gun shows. There’s nothing unlawful about this arrangement, but it’s alleged that the dealer knowingly facilitated straw purchases in violation of federal law, which, if true, would indeed put the suit outside of the PLCAA. Where it gets interesting is that the dealer in question was a high level officer, and is now the President of the distributor that’s being sued as well. Said distributor is the sole marketer and distributor of Hi-Point firearms. The court essentially ruled that the plaintiffs are entitled to discovery, given these facts.

The Brady Center is touting this as a major landmark victory. They have been attempting to poke holes in the PLCAA virtually from the moment it passed, since it has effectively ruined their strategy to sue firearms manufacturers, distributors, and dealers out of existence. I haven’t been able to find all the pleadings in this case to know for sure, but the circumstances here look fairly unique and narrow, with someone who is a dealer and also part owner of the sole distributor of a firearms manufacturer. Nonetheless, the Bradys would love to carve a PLCAA exception wide enough such that any firearm sold by a dealer to a straw buyer can result in a potential lawsuit at least reaching the discovery phase. All it takes is for this to happen in a single jurisdiction, and it’ll be open season on firearms dealers.

Endorsing Concealed Carry in California

Wow, check out this incredible editorial by a California paper against a concealed carry ban – for the specific reason that good people should be able to defend their lives. The mind boggles.

CARRYING CONCEALED WEAPONS.
Senator Roberts has introduced a bill to repeal the law making it a penal offense to carry concealed deadly weapons in this State. It may not sound well in theory to defend the repeal of this law; but we think the movement practically a good one. The old law was always a dead letter among the very class it was designed to restrict â€” the robbers, assassins and desperate characters. It was never needed as against civil citizens, for these never kill or wound save in self-defense. But the effect of it has been to give the worst men in the country greater advantages over the peaceably disposed than they had before; since the law, which is generally respected by the latter, never was regarded by the desperate and evil disposed. These have carried pistols, knives and slung-shots, just the same as if there were no law against it; and the police, always ready to make a dollar or win a little cheap reputation by arresting quiet citizens found by accident with concealed weapons, are very shy of the desperadoes and careful not to run the risk of their displeasure. The law by these means virtually disarmed the good citizens so that the wicked and outlawed portion have them completely at their mercy. It has become worse than a nuisance, and ought to be repealed without delay.

Which paper finally sees the issue so clearly? The Sacramento Daily Union of December 13, 1869.

I learned about a resource of historical newspapers from Clayton Cramer‘s speech at the NRA Second Amendment Symposium. He jokingly ended his speech with the comment that it only took what – 140 years – for the Supreme Court to catch up with newspaper editorials in California.

Specter Dies

Regardless of the fact that he was never conservative enough for conservatives, and never reliable enough for liberals, Arlen Specter was an icon on Pennsylvania politics. He was diagnosed with late-stage Hodgkin’s lymphoma several years ago, but it seems he recently got a non-Hodgkin’s form of the disease and succumbed to it at 82.

Quote of the Day: Felix Baumgartner Edition

I had a lot to do around the house today, but I took the time to watch this live:

â€œThe exit was perfect but then I started spinning slowly. I thought Iâ€™d just spin a few times and that would be that, but then I started to speed up. It was really brutal at times. I thought for a few seconds that Iâ€™d lose consciousness. I didnâ€™t feel a sonic boom because I was so busy just trying to stabilize myself. Weâ€™ll have to wait and see if we really broke the sound barrier. It was really a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.â€ – Felix Baumgartner, October 14, 2012

He made it look like it was easy. You could see the spinning on the long range infrared cameras, and it was worrysome, but it didn’t look bad enough to appear that he was in real trouble. And then he recovered. He broke a several records, including highest manned balloon flight, highest jump, and fastest speed without benefit of a vehicle. But I was happy Joe Kittinger‘s record on longest free fall still stands. The dude deserves to hold at least one record. I suspect Baumgartner shot into the atmosphere like a bullet, and just covered the extra distance that much faster.

UPDATE: From Tam, who also watched the live event on Al Gore’s Internets:

I just used a global communication network to watch video footage and telemetry streamed in real time from the edge of space, where a man privately sponsored by an energy drink company leaped into the black sky and went supersonic without an aircraft.

What a fascinating modern world we live in!

Yep. The next time man lands on the moon, it’ll have a sponsor. Who’ll sponsor the Mars Shot? Probably whichever company corners the moon tourism market.

UPDATE: Another thought. I don’t think the many Americans that tuned in to the live jump thought too much about the fact that an Austrian was gunning for, and eventually beat several world records held by an American. This is still a country where we celebrate individual achievement — one that doesn’t care much whether you’re Austrian, English, Turkish, Armenian, Russian, Chinese, Kenyan or Indonesian. Joe Kittinger helped the Austrian beat all but one of his own records — people who were 70 years ago a mortal enemy. No one thought anything of it. Think about that when you consider the bullshit being flung far and wide over the Sekaku Islands.