June 2014 – Page 4 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Targeting Gun Ranges to Steal Guns

It seems that two armed robbers decided they needed more guns and robbed people coming out of a local shooting range (Delaware Valley Sports Center) to get them. Unfortunately, they also shot one of the victims as they were fleeing. Police also say that there was a robbery at another area gun shop the night before.

Be careful and extremely observant, shooters in the Philadelphia area. These people have more guns and ammunition, and they are clearly willing to shoot you if they think they can get more guns off of you.

I will say that this makes the private club Sebastian shoots at more appealing because there’s no easy access without having to closely follow a member in and no easy exit.

Bloomberg’s Cash Shows Up in the Mississippi Primary

I confess that I have not been paying close attention to the Mississippi Senate primary, but now I’m curious to know if any of our readers know why Mike Bloomberg has recently donated $250,000 to keeping Thad Cochran in office. Cochran has the NRA endorsement and is rated A+, so this seems a little counter-intuitive.

My first assumption was that the PAC Bloomberg gave the money to was involved in multiple races around the country, but all I see is pro-Cochran material on their site, so I don’t think that’s the excuse. Any Mississippi voters who are paying close attention want to chime in?

Everytown May Have Pushed Too Far

It’s not in doubt that our opponents lie in order to get ahead. To be fair to them, they kind of have to, because the actual truth is not on their side. But despite the media being generally compliant in helping them get their message out in a favorable light, there is such a thing as a lie too big even the media can’t ignore it. It appears that Everytown has crossed that line, forcing CNN to walk back earlier statements from the group.

What we have to hope is that this will make the media and hopefully the public a lot more careful about pronouncements from the group in the future. I don’t think this will be an earth shattering event, where Everytown suddenly gets called on every bit of spin or exaggeration from here on out, but at the very least they know they can’t just outright lie and expect the media to just go along.

There have been a number of outlets covering this. I’d at least say it qualifies as a little egg on their faces.

Missouri Town Bans Open Carry

More wages of Open Carry Texas. Missouri has pretty thorough preemption, but local communities are allowed to ban open carry of firearms:

A southwest Missouri community at the Lake of the Ozarks has banned the open carrying of firearms, even by people who have a conceal-and-carry permit, to avoid frightening off potential tourists.

I don’t know what’s been happening lately to give these folks the idea that people would be frightened off by the open carry if firearms. I doubt they get news from Texas all the way up there in Missouri.

There’s currently a bill sitting on Jay Nixon’s desk that would preempt all of this, but he’s not made it clear whether he’ll sign it. Think what’s going on in Texas is helping with that?

All Tools are Weapons

Just so you know where the end game is, this is a campaign in the United Kingdom. Yes, this seems to be serious, and not a parody. Look at the weapons! I see a hammer, a santoku kitchen knife, crossed with a fillet kitchen knife, and a screwdriver. There are not weapons to any normal person who is not half off their rocker. These are unambiguously tools. Are carpenters cowards? Are chefs cowards? Electricians? How does one determine whether someone is carrying a tool for a legitimate purpose or as a weapon? Why would any sane society want to put its people through something like this, having to justify why I might have a hammer, screwdriver, or knife in my car? Why I am carrying a Leatherman? Does anyone in Britain have the guts to tell these people they’ve lost their minds? It’s frankly hard to believe these are the same people who weathered The Blitz and stormed into France at Juneau and Sword.

More on the “Stroller Jam”

We were hearing some conflicting reports yesterday on the Stroller Jam that Mom’s Demand Action from Mayors in Everytown (a tip of the hat to Bearing Arms for coming up with that one) had put together, but it seems the truth is that there was one stroller. Â I’ve never really studied the physics of stroller traffic, but I’m pretty sure that it takes more than one stroller to cause a “jam.” Other than that, there were a dozen people.Â You can find their group portrait here.

At my club last night, made a special award presentation to one of our junior shooters, who earnedÂ NRA’s Junior Distinguished Expert Award, only the second shooter in our junior program to do so. A total of 35 people came to the meeting. That’s maybe 10 higher than what we run on a typical monthly members meeting, but the point is we’re turning out twice the number MDA is for what is normally the most mundane thing you can think of. We got ten extra people for doing something different this month! When CeaseFirePA organized a protest outside of a local lawmaker’s office, on just a few hours notice we were able to come up with twice the number of people they did.

When will it become apparent to corporations like Target that Shannon Watts is, as they would say in Texas, all hat and no cattle?

Legislators Not Optimistic about OC Bill in Texas

From the Texas State Rifle Association:

Last week, Mike Cox and I worked a TSRA booth at the Republican Convention in Fort Worth. During the first two days Republican House members and Senators dropped by to say hello.Â All commented that the gun-carrying demonstrations are doing more harm than good and not to expect much from the 2015 legislative session.

The complaints were fueled by a demonstration outside the Fort Worth Convention Center plus a handful of delegates who wore black powder handguns into the convention.

As TSRA’s lobbyist,Â I count votesÂ and I begin counting votes long before bills are even filed.Â Wouldn’t you?Â Â Every negative comment could be considered a “no vote” on any form of open carry.

There’s a rumor that Target is considering only banning open carry. That will include pistol OCers. Pistol OCers are going to be the biggest losers in all of this, because a concealed carrier’s gun is never going to be detected to prompt the request to leave the premises. And assuming that MDA has no luck getting corporations to post (which has force of law in a number of states), which I wouldn’t bet on if the dam starts breaking in a major way, which it appears it’s about to.

NRA’s “Dom & Jerry” on Militarization of Law Enforcement

I’m not really pleased with NRA taking a position on this issue, so I’ll join the chorus of gun bloggers who have been condemning it. Bob Owens notes:

Weâ€™re giving real, selective-fire assault rifles and submachine guns to officers that mean well, but who were never trained to the point of competence, and law enforcement leaders are increasingly using these units in a wider range of operations in order to justify their expense.

I donâ€™t know of anyone would would deny law enforcement officers the use of body armor, sidearms, or patrol rifles as needed in the course of their duties, as long as those officers are adequately trained. Unfortunately, many agencies are using military tactics and weapons in routine operations, where they are contributing to the risk of innocent people being hurt or killed, instead of serving and protecting.

Read the whole thing, because I think Bob hits the nail on the head here. On a humorous note, I had to add a like to the top-rated comment when NRA shared this on their Facebook page:

I’m sure if I talked to someone there about this, they’d stress the importance of not alienating law enforcement. It is unfortunately true that we depend on law enforcement acquiescence in order to maintain our political power (politicians might be OK with going against the IACOP, but when the FOP has turned on us we’ve traditionally lost). Also, a decent portion of NRA’s membership are LEOs and former military. Despite that, I don’t think NRA needed to take a position on this issue. It may help with the cops, but probably a decent portion of NRA’s membership believes they are on the wrong side of this issue.

Stroller Jammin’

Moms Demand Action is still keeping the heat on Target. They planned a stroller jam. Normally I’d suggest that a tactic highlighting their weakness (the ability to turn out crowds) would be a problem, but in this case, OCT has handed Shannon Watts enough juice I’m expecting the media will be compliant lapdogs and turn out to cover this ordinarily non-story out the wazoo.

We’re sincerely hoping that everyone has called. This could be her first serious, non-BS victory if we don’t act. Understand that corporations are like lemmings. If one goes off the cliff, you can bet others will follow. This goes double if people keeping OCing long guns around in businesses.

UPDATE:

@SebastianSNBQ One sad little mom showed up for stroller jam. Ouch!

— Liberty Arms MN (@LibertyArmsMN) June 11, 2014

Who Gabby is Giving Money To

Gabby Giffords is focusing on a local (to me) politician:

Aiming to spend as much as $20 million, the group also will weigh in for Democratic House Reps. Michael Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Carol Shea-Porter and Ann McLane Kuster of New Hampshire and Ron Barber of Arizona. Barber has a special meaning for Giffords because he used to work in her congressional office and was also wounded in the 2011 Tucson shooting that gravely wounded Giffords.

Emphasis mine. Fitzpatrick is actually a Republican, but those of you who live here might get a little giggle out of that. One thing we’ve been wondering is whether Fitzpatrick will hold on to his NRA endorsement. By all rights he ought to lose it, because he signed on to the House version of Manchin-Toomey, but his voting record has generally been good otherwise.

The last Democrat we had in Congress supported bans on semi-autos. The last few challenger to Fitzpatrick returned a favorable questionnaire.