The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
If you’ve never volunteered for a campaign before, I strongly suggest 2012 as the year to start. Why?
Because when Rick Santorum is polling within 2 points of Barack in a state like Pennsylvania, you know that knocking on doors and making calls is going to result in awesome rants against the administration. If anything, you’ll be assured good laughs.
It’s always fun when moms write advice columns about kids and guns – you know, the kind without any actual knowledge of guns. Take this one I came across today. Her initial suggestion is along the lines of Eddie Eagle training & focusing on how guns aren’t like toys. That’s reasonable, but it may not be something that sticks well without a more thought-out lesson like Eddie Eagle.
Then she turns to a parenting coach who she doesn’t cite as having any knowledge of firearms. I’ll say this, at least the coach admits that her advice is embracing the crazy.
Susan Epstein, a psychotherapist in New London who has coached parents for more than 20 years, believes it is our duty to tackle the tough questions.
“I would say it in a self-deprecating way, ‘I’m over the top, but I just want to know if there are guns in your house,'” she suggests saying. She thinks this humble, nonjudgmental “you might think I’m crazy” approach can defuse many difficult situations.
Because, let’s face it, if you tell me that you’re crazy and then want to know about my guns, I’m just going to line up to tell you! Even better, the columnist suggests not just asking about guns in the home, but asking detailed questions about where they are stored and how they are accessed. The questions she suggests seem more like casing a joint rather than actual concern about your child’s access. I guess that’s just part of embracing her crazy.
Of course, said advice columnist then cites a shooting incident that has absolutely nothing to do with the issue being discussed in the column other than there was a gun and a kid. I think that’s what pisses me off about these kinds of columns. It is reasonable if you’re sending your kid over to a new house to talk to parents about what’s going to happen during said visit and what kinds of concerns you might have for your child’s safety while they are in the other parent’s care. But throwing out sob stories that are off topic and citing people who have zero knowledge about actual risks kids might face doesn’t help others to be anything other than scared and crazy.
I can’t even fathom being able to go to the range with nearly zero practice and put up perfect scores in competition. Yet, apparently this chick can do that.
In the Dewar Course Metallic Sight match, she captured runner-up honors with a score of 400 (out of 400 possible) with 35 x-ring shots. She also took High Woman and High Collegiate honors in the match.
She then shot another 400 (with 29 x-ring shots) to win the High Expert Civilian Category in the 100-yard Metallic Sight Match. In the next match — the 50-meter Metallic Sight competition — she shot a 397 with 26 x-rings to take second in the Expert Civilian Category.
Her three-match 1,197 aggregate on the competition’s second day earned her top honors in the Expert Civilian Category, one point ahead of runner-up Ben Haney. Her four-day total was good for a second-place overall finish in the category.
The story includes more examples of Catherine Kauffelt’s ass-kicking range scores in other competitions. Then it notes that her coach thinks she could wipe out the competition if she only practiced. Unfortunately, as a pre-law/economics major, she doesn’t really have time to do it while she’s at school in California.
I’m pretty sure that’s the mindset we’re headed towards with stories about fathers and grandfathers being run off of public areas or reported to the police for taking pictures of their own family members. When a raving lunatic woman gets in a man’s face screaming at him for no other reason than he’s taking pictures of his grandchild in his care at the park, where is the media report about a crazed woman attacking men with families?
I love how the local media jumped on the lynch mob bandwagon without actually asking police for more details about the incident that may have given them a clue there’s no probable cause or actual reason for suspicion.
But what really caught my attention was from the related stories. I somehow missed that NJ has a bill that would ban anyone from taking pictures if minors were in it and their parents didn’t feel like it was a situation where their child should be photographed. The punishment? Three to five years in prison and/or a fine up to $15K.
The bill’s sponsors freely admit that it’s completely unconstitutional, but they just want to do something about those perverts who take pictures in public places where minors run around freely. Like this person. Or this one. Or this one.
When it gets the point where I can go through the galleries of scrapbooking sites to find moms who have pictures of their children posted with other minors in the background and declare that in New Jersey, they could face five years in prison if lawmakers get their way, something has gone terribly wrong in our society.
I think what also bothers me is that if the mother in the initial story who screamed at the grandfather truly believed he was a threat, she handled the situation in the wrong way. There’s such a thing as asking questions – questions like “Which one is yours?” – that would give you ammunition if you really did need to call the cops. If you can tell them that a man is truly behaving suspiciously – running from polite contact, admitting that he has no children on site, and he actually does something creepy to or around one of the children, then there’s room for them to investigate. That might actually lead to a situation where a potentially dangerous person is removed from the park, and possibly put behind bars if they discover illegal activities. If I were a mother, I would think that is a far better solution than running around a park screaming at men for no other crime than they have a penis and are caring for their own children or grandchildren. But then again, that might be my sanity getting in the way.
Specifically, the poll tackles Sunday hunting. Richard, this is your chance to voice your opinion.
NRA just posted a survey of their followers on Facebook asking about the repeal of Sunday hunting bans in Pennsylvania and Virginia. In 4 minutes, the results are pretty overwhelming. So, if you are an NRA member and have an opinion, go share it with them.
So now you can’t say that NRA isn’t listening to you, Sunday ban advocates. It’s your chance to cast your vote alongside your fellow NRA members.
At least, that’s what the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau seems to be arguing.
Okay, I get that not everyone is on board with Sunday hunting, particularly religious farmers. I don’t agree with them, and I’m going to do what I can to open up hunting. But I’m not going to say that they are any less a part of the discussion or shouldn’t be considered in the debate. However, that’s what their spokesman is saying about those of us who support it. See, we’re just a bunch of “interests outside Pennsylvania.” To back it up, he cites NRA which has about 400,000 members who live here – many of whom do support allowing us the option to hunt on Sunday. Another evil outside group? NSSF with more than 500 Pennsylvania business owners here who serve hundreds of thousands of hunters & gun owners.
Honestly, shame on the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau for reducing themselves to this level of “us vs. them” attacks. We are Pennsylvania citizens. We have a voice and a vote, too. We pay the taxes that fund the subsidies many of your members benefit from – hello Farm Bill. Just because we don’t agree doesn’t mean that we’re somehow “less Pennsylvanian” than farmers.
Paul Helmke has been chatting it up with the Indianapolis Star about his time with the Brady Campaign, and I find think we can find big clues about his departure in his answers.
Accountability on Meeting Goals
In answering a question about his biggest accomplishment, Helmke responded:
I think we elevated the attention that the issue has been getting. My view was it was tough getting through to elected officials on Capitol Hill, so I wanted to get in the media as much as I could.
The first thing I hear in that statement is “I think.” What does he mean that he “thinks” he accomplished his goal of getting his position into the media? As the former president, that is something Helmke should know. He should have a recent board report – or at least a general idea of the numbers from it on whether he actually accomplished the goal of increasing the number of media hits, the diversity of media hits, the number of target audience hits, and the advertising value of those total hits for his tenure. Either he is saying “think” in order to distract from the fact that he did not reach his goal, or he is saying “think” because he legitimately doesn’t know which means he wasn’t holding himself accountable to meeting said goals. Neither of those circumstances is good for continued employment.
Connecting with Lawmakers
Going back to his answer on his greatest accomplishment, Helmke says that it was hard to get through to lawmakers. One reason may tie into just who Helmke was compared to who those lawmakers who push gun control are:
When I got hired, one of the reasons they said they wanted me is because they were tired of being seen as a Democratic, liberal, East Coast organization.
So here I was: a Republican, Midwestern, former mayor. Part of what I’ve tried to do at the job over the last five years is to say that gun control shouldn’t be a wedge issue, that it shouldn’t be a Republican versus Democrat issue.
He was someone who could not pledge party loyalty and he was someone who could not identify with the highly urban and mostly East & West Coast districts. If he was truly trying to keep it from being a wedge issue, that won’t work to unify many of the leaders of the gun control caucus on the Hill. Look at what one of their favorites Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee can do – trying to make race a wedge issue on the debt ceiling debates. His side loves a wedge issue. Other than Mike Castle, they didn’t exactly have Republicans lining up to sponsor their bills. By the end of his first three years, Helmke should have recognized that his strategy of bringing Republicans to the table wasn’t really working. Clearly, he wasn’t willing to change his approach in a way that made any serious advances with lawmakers of any stripe.
Connecting with True Believers
In addition to media, Helmke said grassroots were his next big concern.
My plan from the start had been to be start organizing at the grass-roots level more. We do have chapters around the country, and they do make a difference. But most of them are in places where we’re doing well already — in California and New York and New Jersey.
What I wish I had done more of early was organize grassroots chapters in places where we haven’t done so well, through the Midwest and the Plains states.
So once again we’re looking at an early goal not realized. And, just so we’re clear, it’s good to know that Paul thinks Joan’s efforts weren’t worth much up in Minnesota.
But, in all seriousness, this answer tells me that he doesn’t know how to connect with the people who would be his grassroots on gun control. The people of New Jersey, California, and New York would say they have a ways to go before things are good in those states. It’s not about being moderate to them, it’s about making gun ownership the biggest hassle while technically not overturning the Second Amendment (at least until they can help Barack see one of the Heller Five off the bench.) To those folks, they aren’t just waiting for other states to catch up, they want people in those other states to have just as much passion as they do to make gun ownership as big a hassle as possible.
People don’t get excited for a “moderate” message – even if that’s what they actually believe. Those who are closer to the margins are the ones who are passionate. They are the ones who are more informed about what needs to be done and political opportunities to advance the cause. Talking to the middle doesn’t actually work very well. If the Brady board continued to order Paul to do that, then his lack of success is as much on them as it is on him.
Not the Idea Guy
One of the final reasons I don’t think Helmke worked out for them struck me in that last featured response – he’s a former mayor. Yet, it’s Mike Bloomberg who is the personality behind Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Granted, I’ll give it to Paul that the coalition was formed the same year he took over for Brady, but I think it highlights that he didn’t exactly bring his “local” way of thinking to the issue in a way that developed grassroots for them or otherwise put political pressure on federal lawmakers.
There weren’t any new or memorable initiatives by the Brady Campaign during his term as President. There is something to be said for coming back to the table and being persistent on the specific legislative issues you’re most passionate about, but you have to come up with fresh ideas to see what balls you can move down the court in any given year. If it’s the same mode of attack year and year out without progress, it’s time to move on to someone with new ideas.
We watched The Parking Lot Movie the other day on Netflix. Now, I love my Netflix for these oddball documentaries. (That and bad sci-fi, but that’s not relevant to this post.)
But something has nagged at the back of my mind for a while. One of the employees admitted that he would arbitrarily charge different prices to different customers regardless of how long they parked because of judgements he would make on their personal status in life.
I realize that as a parking lot owner, you’re probably not that concerned about lawsuits, but having an employee admit it, and then say that he gave the company all of the extra profits from these duped customers, that just screams bad news all around. There’s just something about that admission that doesn’t sit well with me, even though I don’t think I’d fall into the categories of people the guy would charge double the actual fees.
I do recognize that there are plenty of circumstances where people pay different prices for the same goods or service even from the same company – airline tickets or anything from Amazon are the first things that come to mind. But when there’s a posted uniform rate agreed upon at the time you park and then an employee makes a snap decision that isn’t based on time, service, or demand, but on personal traits he doesn’t like in customers, that doesn’t really seem kosher. Is it lawsuit worthy? At the very least, it seems like it wouldn’t be worth the hassle to park there since you never know when the parking lot attendent will have his panties in a twist over something you may have done that offends him – like breathe.
Another thing that stands out is that they described the hiring process which is essentially, “I know a guy.” Okay, that’s fine. Except there were no female employees at all. God forbid if a woman ever applied for a job there and was turned away. I guess what bothers me is that the parking lot featured (in Charlottesville, Virginia, btw) really put itself out there to advertise shady business practices and a hiring process that may not be on the up-and-up. This doesn’t seem like something most small business owners would actually want to do.
Maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps the parking lot in the movie has had even more business than ever. I admit to being thoroughly entertained by the documentary, I’m just not sure that I actually trust anyone associated with the business not to rip me off even if I play by all of the agreed-upon rules.
I actually haven’t heard people say it about this state, but because I know there are so many NRA program supporters out in Arizona, I’ll highlight what NRA has been doing for them lately.
In 2010, the NRA Civil RIghts Defense Fund provided assistance in three cases. Two of them were in regards to personal situations with firearms and the third involved a shooting range.
The year also saw more than $314,000 in grants flow through the state courtesy of The NRA Foundation and the generous attendees of Friends of NRA banquets. (See how many are left? Go to one and the join your fellow Arizona gun nuts for some NRA sandwiches when you win the NRA toaster.) Back to the money. That cash went to 35 organizations that support shooters around the state.
Today’s NRA-hates us state is Massachusetts. Sure, sure, bitch and moan that NRA isn’t spending any of your dues in your backyard. You’d be wrong.
The NRA Foundation spent more than $47,000 on grants for 18 organizations in the state last year. If you want more, well, get thee to a Friends dinner. Because I know quite a few of the gun blogging folks like to shoot at Harvard, you can support an upcoming dinner not far down the road in Leominster. And tell your buddies at the Leominster gun clubs to get their butts into those seats as well.
The Civil Rights Defense Fund gave financial support to two Massachusetts cases in 2010.