Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley appears to have used his executive power to get the personal emails of citizens with hunting licenses in order to push gun control. The second-term Democrat is using the information in an attempt to divide gun owners to build support for his extremist legislation to abridge Second Amendment rights.
Let us hope this backfires in a big, big way. I think this really shows how poorly they understand the community. Sure, there are hunters that might tell a pollster that they support certain gun control measures, but it’s not an issue they are going to go to bat over. But many hunters hate gun control, and it’s quite likely here all Governor O’Malley is doing is helping get the word out to our people. The hunter license list, I’m sure, is reaching a lot of people NRA and the rest of the gun rights movement has difficulty reaching. This likely will mobilize more people against gun control than mobilize them for. I think this was a gross miscalculation on the part of the Governor.
We won’t use registration to come get your guns. But, we know were you live just because you have a hunting license. Wink, wink.
Exactly. The first thing I thought was if I was a hunter and was even remotely inclined to support gun control, having them use an existing registration scheme for political purposes would cause some second thoughts.
Even if it is kind of obvious, gun owners in MD should work on a letter-to-the-editor campaign to remind their less astute brethren of how the governor’s action illustrates that principle.
Link is broken.
I get a Maryland license every year, but am a non resident so perhaps they aren’t emailing me. I do hunt with some folks form Maryland though. I will see if any of them have gotten an email.
I’m thinking the folks getting spammed by the Governor’s office should file a class-action suit against him on privacy grounds.
O’Malley messed this one up. There is a capital news paper that isn’t online and their front page yesterday has an above-the-fold story that had the word “offends hunters” in the headline.
It doesn’t matter if he can argue it was legal to do. It was dumb for him to do it. He just went Orwell on a bunch of people he promised to leave out of it. They were already aware – thanks to grassroots efforts – but this email demonstrates something visceral: the governor knows where you are and will use you whether you like it or not.
I am not sensing any hesitation from hunters in opposing Gun Control 2.0. They know they are just further down O’Malley’s list. We had 4,000 last Wednesday, and many of them were talking about their treestands.
“O’Malley messed this one up.”
I’d say so. I’d hope so. But learn from our enemies mistakes.
I’d say this is an example of someone screwing up because his camp believes their own bullshit.
Not to believe your own bullshit is good advice for everybody.