2015 – Page 22 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Moms Demand Claiming Fake Victories?

John Richardson notes that Bloomberg’s Moms Demand Action has been claiming victories that probably aren’t. A lot of FFLs, especially big box retailers, have traditionally refused sales under default proceeds. We had talked about this even before Bloomberg’s people latched onto the issue, in the context of getting rid of POC states. I could totally see Watts calling up these outfits, which have never done default proceeds, and after confirming they didn’t, declare victory to her supporters. This is also likely part of the plan to energize her supporters to put pressure on Cabela’s, which apparently will do default proceeds. Hopefully Cabela’s is wise and smart enough to know who butters their bread, and it’s not Shannon Watts or any of her foaming-at-the-mouth supporters. They will no doubt remember gun owners nearly killing Smith & Wesson for conspiring with the enemy, and will be wise enough to completely ignore this Bloomberg funded non-issue.

The reason default proceeds exist, and need to exist, is because without them, all the a petulant AdministrationÂ would have to do to shut down gun sales entirely is take the NICS system offline.

Weekly Gun News – Edition 8

Summers are usually kind of brutal for blogging, since the news cycle gets slow and people are focused on other things. But I probably have enough for a news link post.

NRA was making waves pretty quickly demanding an end to a ban on carrying defensive firearms for our military men and women. Everytown’s position on this issue is turning off even some pro-gun-control people I know.

Shannon Watts has never let a lack of facts get in the way of her propagandizing before, so I don’t know why she’d start now.

This is the particular lack of facts she was speaking over.

Baltimore anti-violence group caught with illegally acquired guns and drugs.

Dave Hardy has more on the “police loophole.”

Self-defense myths that just won’t die.

How’s that SAFE act working out for ya? Shootings are way up in Syracuse.

The DOJ is denying gun dealers were targeted by Operation Choke Point. I thought it was the FDIC that was the agency weaponized against gun dealers?

The struggle continues in Colorado. The recalls were wonderful at cooling the hells of gun control supporting politicians, but not getting Hickenlooper was a big problem.

Can I get an Amen?: “Iâ€™d mind my own fucking business. This world needs more of that.”

I’ve been seeing the “40% of all guns sales…” lie going around in the mediaÂ once again. We know from states who’ve listened to this BS that either there are very few private transfers occurring, or no one is complying with the law. Either way, the law is useless.

Chicago Tribune: Hillary should stay on the gun control bandwagon because the gun vote is already baked into the numbers.

Judge agrees California ban on gun store advertising violates the First Amendment, but won’t give an injunction.

The total failure of gun control captured in one photo.

Bradys Drop Suit Against Lucky Gunner

They had appealed the judgement against them originally, but now they are dropping the case entirely. I am very disappointed that the Brady Center has decided against donating more money to pro-Second Amendment causes, but I thank them for the $100,000 they are already pledged to donate. If the Brady Center had decided to just donate that money to the NRA directly, well, $100,000 isn’t enough to get you the gold jacket, but it would have been enough to get them into the Alexander Hamilton Society. As it is, with the way the voting is going, the Brady Center’s donor dollars will only get them as far as the Thomas Paine Society, and hell, even I rated for that one year.

Gun Clubs & The Press

Last week, I ventured out to West Virginia for a funeral and managed to stop by a couple of libraries between family gatherings to do a little bit of genealogy research for Sebastian. Needless to say, these aren’t the kinds of circumstances where I planned to think about the gun culture and media outreach.

While scanning microfilm for an obituary I knew existed somewhere, I found this article in the community news section of the March 18, 1899 edition of the St. Mary’s Oracle.

Now, you might not really care about the winners of the clay bird shoot at the Mountain State Gun Club 116 years ago, but the local press did care because they were all locals. The same applies today.

Sometimes we focus on the national or statewide political fights while we ignore one of the best angles we can use in the media – the fact that people in our clubs are great representatives for our cause simply because neighbors, friends, and family know them and know that they won’t hurt people with their guns. Even better, the club members don’t have to talk to the press or do anything other than show up for activities they already enjoy.

The NBC national news won’t care about your club’s rifle shooters that managed to sweep the regional competition, but the local paper will care about it if you include names and towns. There’s one thing that will still move hard copies of newspapers, and that is mostly the fact that they will cover local stories with local people who have friends and family willing to read about them.

A volunteer with another group noted that regardless of what we might consider the news-worthiness of a story, if she includes the names and towns of the volunteers involved, it almost always gets picked up by more of the smaller community publications. Yes, they are even read by others, as I learned when congratulated for being elected to an office of the unrelated group by a Friends of the NRA volunteer. There’s no reason that we can’t do the same thing.

So I would say that if you’re part of a gun club, or even if you run a commercial gun range that hosts competitions, why not have a community/public relations type role that will put out a simple press release talking about who wins? If you include a picture of the winners, then the paper will be far more likely to run the news. It’s a great community outreach tool that we have been far too willing to ignore.

.45 ACP Luger

No, really.

Via TFB, who highlights some of the other delightful weirdnessÂ to be found there. When Germans go weird, they goÂ weird.

Hardly Surprising: Everytown Favors Disarmed Military Personnel

Bloomberg’s mouthpiece tells about the dangers of our military personnel being armed. Every argument against military personnel being armed are the exact same arguments they used to fight concealed carry for civilians. None of those chicken little predictions have come to pass anywhere it’s been tried. If the military brass are so worried about their soldiers carrying, how about a compromise: any soldier who holds a concealed carry permit from any state is permitted to carry a firearm in federal facilities or military bases openly or concealed.

Bloomberg’s mouthpiece brings up the Posse Comitatus Act, but we’re not talking about arming soldiers to act as law enforcement, we’re talking about allowing them to be armed for their own protection and for the protection of those around them.

State governors are already starting to act, while the federal government is responding that recruiters should step up security by closing blinds. These days it’s really hard to tell the difference between real news and parody.

More on Everytown’s Efforts to End Default Proceeds

Everytown is apparently seeking a large ad buy ($12 million) in order to push what they are now calling the “Charleston Loophole.”Â This is very dishonest. First of, the bureaucrats had five days to act, and they did not. Secondly, there’s supposed to be follow up on default proceeds. There was not. This was entirely a failure of government. Default proceeds were intended to prevent people exercising their rights from having those rights held hostage to bureaucrats who refused to act. All it would have taken was a phone call. Default proceeds are not a “loophole.”

I’m also amused by Everytown’s attempts to inflate their numbers. Their claims of membership are laughable: “Everytown for Gun Safety says it has more than 3 million members and 40,000 donors.” I’m sure they have 3 million people who signed a petition, or had any other contact with their organization, like signing up for an e-mail list. I’m signed up for their newsletters, so I probably count as a member. If they were to use something closer to NRA’s standard, they have 40,000 members. They have 780,000 followers on their Facebook Page (who I’d bet count as members), and I’d wager a good number of them are pro-gun people keeping tabs. NRA has 4.2 million.

Nonetheless, Bloomberg’s money is the biggest threat we face. The gun control movement has never seen this kind of cash put behind it. We’re probably quite lucky that we’re dealing with Bloomberg now, after all our cultural gains of the last decade, and not dealing with him back in the 90s. I shudder to think what his money would have done to us back in the 1990s.

Gun Ban for Elderly Proposed by Obama Administration

A set of thumbscrews, a metaphor for this Administration. — A set of thumbscrews. A metaphor for this Administration.

Sometimes you just have to wonder if the Obama Administration is trolling us at this point. The White House floated a proposal to strip Second Amendment rights from about four million of our nation’s senior citizens who receive Social Security benefits through a “representative payee.” This is personal for Bitter and I because her grandfather, at 90 years old, falls into this category, and he owns firearms that have been in the family for a long time. He’s plenty safe to handle firearms, however he has had someone else managing his affairs for him for some time. One can imagine someone elderly who might forget to pay bills if they managed their own affairs, but can still handle a firearm safely.

NRA has more to say about it here. And what is the purpose of this? Do we have an epidemic of octogenarians committing mass murder? Holding up banks? Hitting the streets and robbing people so they can get the money for their next hit of Geritol? There’s no public safety issue at work here. This is just meant to screw people for embarrassing the Administration on guns.

The thing I really hate about the Obama Administration is that it has no issue with being unjust or unfair; if you oppose its policies, you can expect it to try to stick it to you. Not stick it to Congress, or stick it to political rivals in DC, youÂ will be made to pay. The Obama Administration has no issue taking out their anger on ordinary Americans. Bill Clinton’s Administration dealt us a number of defeats in the 1990s, and you did have the HUD deals, and other executive shenanigans, but even then I don’t remember Clinton sticking it directly to the rank and file like Obama does.

So what’s going to happen here? My guess is NRA can probably get another of the many budget riders it’s gotten out of Congress to defund any attempt by the Administration to implement this plan. I can’t imagine preventing 4 million SSA recipientsÂ from suddenly, overnight, becoming prohibited persons is going to be much of an ask to Congress.

Let the Pant Sh**ting Hysterics Commence!

Looks like someone else armed a drone. Per FAA regulations, this isn’t legal, but not like that’s going to stop anyone intent on causing harm, or anyone just looking to have some fun.

Nonetheless, I’m sure there are politicians out there who are, as we speak, trying to figure out how to make this more illegal. Because if weapons control doesn’t work, you just need to double down on it, only this time with vigor!

Jonah Goldberg on “The Donald”

From his column over at National Review:

His biggest fans disappoint in other ways as well. I marvel at how they can simultaneously despise Obamaâ€™s arrogance but revel in Trumpâ€™s. (I chuckle at all of the people who tell me heâ€™s a heroic truth-teller for â€œtelling it like it isâ€ and â€œcalling it as he sees itâ€ but who at the same time fume at me when I tell it like it is about Trump and call it as I see it.)

I’ve learned over the years that you get in trouble for actually calling things as you see them. Where you are on safe ground is being in the business of telling people what they want to hear and emotionally validating them. That’s the business Trump is engaged in.Â Jonah then lays out the case for Trump being a fraud. I’ve said before, he’s a stalking horse for Hillary.

Look, these are rough times for conservatives, for reasons too lengthy, and all too familiar, to go into here. But none of our problems â€” demographic, political, cultural â€” can be solved unless conservatives take the cause of persuasion to heart. All of our problems can be fixed by convincing people to join our cause. That is what politics is about â€” persuading people that their interests and concerns are better addressed by coming to our side. And, given the degraded nature of our culture, I wonâ€™t deny that having a celebrity on our side has its utility. But itâ€™s only helpful if that celebrity convinces people to switch sides. As a purely mathematical proposition, it is insane to believe that Donald Trump will convert more voters than he will repel.

Rhetoric matters. It takes more than emotional validation to win elections. The candidate I’m looking for in 2016 will be the one who can manage things well behind the scenes to destroy the bureaucratic monstrosity the left has built, and restore constitutional government, while publicly smiling to the camera, charming reporters, and convincing the country what a swell guy (or gal) he or she is. It’s a rare talent, especially among Republicans, but it’s what I’m looking for.