We all know the Center for Biological Diversity as the group that, before the recent election petitioned the EPA to regulate lead ammunition under the Toxic Substances Control Act, which the EPA politely declined. Well, now it seems they are rallying to the gun control cause as a whole, not restricting themselves merely to the lead issue. From a reader:
From: Center for Biological Diversity <kieran@biologicaldiversity.org>
Sent: Monday, December 24, 2012 5:00 PM
Subject: Take a Stand: Don’t Let the NRA Take America HostageDear Center Supporter:
The National Rifle Association’s extremist agenda has held our political system hostage for too long.
The Center for Biological Diversity has long fought the NRA over the senseless killing of endangered wolves, condors, polar bears and bald eagles. After the horrific, gun-charged killings in Newtown — and seeing the NRA’s sickening refusal to take responsibility or support any gun violence reforms at all — I’ve decided that enough is enough!
We just ran a full-page ad in The New York Times calling out the NRA’s extremist political agenda and endorsing not only the elimination of highly toxic lead from bullets (a longtime Center campaign) but also legislation to end gun violence against people.
[…]
The rest is fairly typical fundraising fare. So I guess the gun control groups aren’t alone in fundraising off Newtown. It does indicate that there is a definite push to put gun control under the purview of the entire left-establishment, and not just something pushed by underfunded extremists groups and rich billionaires.
Interesting. I wonder if they’re having donor fatigue or mission-accomplished problems on other fronts?
The Center for Biological Diversity has long fought the NRA over the senseless killing of endangered wolves, condors, polar bears and bald eagles.
Wait, what?
The Bald Eagle is thriving (“Least Concern” according to the IUCN), and the NRA has never pushed for any sort of hunting of them, as far as I know.
The Gray Wolf is also listed as “Least Concern”, not remotely endangered – and while various people want to hunt them when they’re annoying livestock, that’s also not really an NRA thing, last I checked.
I expect hyperbole from advocacy groups, but those are outright lies… at least the California Condor is legitimately endangered.
Haha, seriously they are dumb. When has the NRA ever advocated for killing freaking POLAR BEARS!??!
Last I checked we already had laws on the books that made assault, assault with a deadly weapon and murder crimes punishable by incarceration and in the case of murder by death in certain jurisdictions. Their statement makes it sound like those laws aren’t working. Oh…
And claiming that the NRA is somehow responsible for the aberrant behavior of a tiny handful of statistical outliers just shows their own disconnect with the real world. BTW: When are they going to take responsibility for the harm done to our nations livestock and citizens by the wolves they are working so diligently to protect? (Whether they have four legs or two?)
Yeah, I don’t get it. Wouldn’t accusations of encouraging hunting animals on the endangered species list be libelous?
Also, while I don’t claim to know the NRA’s programs terribly well, I can’t recall seeing anything beyond support for hunting in general – is there some aspect of NRA advocacy that I’m missing?
Pretty small potatoes after the blood libel of child murder….
CBD has already lost one defamation lawsuit
I see that they are a 501(c)(3) organization:
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/publications/reports/CBD_2011_form_990.pdf
I’m not a tax lawyer, but doesn’t this border on the level of political advocacy that would endanger their tax-exempt status?
Lately, that only seems to be a problem for Tea Party organizations (i.e. Obama and his tax cheat treasurer aren’t going to go after this group).
They should stop lying and change their name to “Center for Extremist Douchebaggery”.
Why is it a meme with these radical leftistas that what is normal is “extremist”? Lead has been used in bullets for centuries, but these crazies suddenly jump up and call it “extremist”. They need to get over themselves, or stay away from Starbucks.
I used to (early Clinton Admin) work for a fairly major conservationist organization. Our Chesapeake Bay office (where I worked) was located in a beach cottage. When I wore deck shoes with no socks and a shirt with a collar, I was better dressed than my boss. The person in the office nearest politically to me thought Bill Clinton was a right winger.
we were fairly effective in getting federal, state, and local laws to protect the marine environment, and were absolutely instrumental in getting serious marine pollution treaties in effect. We reported annually to Congress and the UN on our studies of marine pollution – and its sources – on every single continent. I regularly fielded phone calls from the US Navy, asking if particular actions were legal or not (including one SAT call from VACapes, asking if they could jettison unfired CIWS ammo after a major gun test. . . the answer was, “Well, you’ve already been jettisoning it at about 4000fps anyway. . . ” {chuckle})
However, every single member of our office, and most of the staff around the world (except the clueless interns and some of teh PR types) absolutely HATED groups like CBD, and most of us thought Al Gore was a publicity whore and a prat who damaged the goal by his wild accusations, BS PR appearances (he’d show up at a beach cleanup site in a suit, expect the lcoals to kit him so he looked like he was wading along teh shoreline all day picking up trash, and then be out of there in 30 minutes flat. . . never get between Al Gore and a TV camera, unless you are tired of life.)
The difference? We were a science based organization, and used actual measurable data — discarding any data that looked “fishy” with a specific bias to reduce our reported levels of pollution, while still pointing out our reported values were way too high for environmental health. In other words, if someone reported finding tons of crap in an area where no one else out of hundreds reported finding anywhere near the same amount, despite being in teh same spot on the same day, we tossed the “high” report. If the data collection and documentation didn’t meet our standards for accuracy and traceability, we tossed the data. The rule was, “Better to minimize the issues than to ever get caught with claims you can’t defend.” (Sort of a “fruit of the poisoned tree” exclusionary rule. We were, after all, dealing with a lot of reports from well-meaning, but potentially unreliable due to overenthusiasm to “do something”, volunteers.)
So when we presented our cases, policy makers and legislators listened, because they knew we were, if anything, understating the problem rather than indulging hysterical hyperbole and exaggeration. We got crap done and got effective controls in place without crippling important stuff like local economies or the military, while the extremists got very little done, and generally what they did get done was ineffective.