Bitter – Page 16 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Saying No to Bloomberg

NRA is launching an ad campaign to highlight what an insulting busybody Michael Bloomberg is to anyone who doesn’t want to live their life the same way he demands the little people live.

According to the WaPo, it’s starting out with a $500,000 buy in Colorado. USA Today says that it will also run nationally on cable. They also report a digital ad buy in other states like Iowa, Louisiana, Nevada, Kentucky, North Carolina and Georgia.

This buy starts now, so they aren’t waiting until the elections to do it.

DC Still Presses for More Time

The District of Columbia wanted to keep their ban on carry by law-abiding citizens. The court said no. Then, DC said they needed 180 days. The court said that 90 days was plenty. Despite the fact that the sky did not actually fall during the couple of days of lawful carry, DC is still spending their time begging the courts for more time to decide how they can most restrict individual rights.

A New Day, A New Gun Ban Initiative

After the embarrassing political loss for a county office, we knew Bloomberg wouldn’t sit back and let that slide. Now he’s sending the Moms who are continuing to use their brand, despite being rolled into Everytown Against Illegal Mayors Who Hate Guns (or whatever their name is), after grocery stores thanks to images offered up by open carry activists with rifles.

So far, it seems like Kroger is willing to stand by their policy of just letting state and local laws prevail. The company spokesman told HuffPo, “We know that our customers are passionate on both sides of this issue and we trust them to be responsible in our stores.”

Criminal Everything

This isn’t gun related, and it’s not really a case of true over-criminalization (though it easily could be if the state wanted to go after the family for truancy caused by the school), but it’s still something that pisses me off about the nanny culture getting its panties in a twist over any type of non-conformity.

If you’re a school administrator, there are some battles worth fighting. Students who fight, drug or alcohol abuse that impacts the school environment, and maybe even a few slaps on the wrist for overly revealing clothing. Then there are things that aren’t actually disruptive to anyone other than a tight ass who feels an absurd need to punish those who do not engage in groupthink. The principal of Muscle Shoals, Alabama appears to be one of those people.

He kicked out a girl for dying her hair red. Yup, red. Not purple, not blue, not green, not glittery silver, just red.

For the record, those other colors were all colors that I dyed my hair in high school without ever disrupting the school. The closest you might consider a disruption was at the end of my junior year when the school newspaper used me for a trivia question and asked what my normal hair color really was, and no one could remember so they kept asking me throughout the day. Yup, that’s the extent of “disruption” that hair color caused.

Her mother seems to understand how to distinguish between actual problematic behavior in teens and a bottle of red hair dye:

“I dyed my hair when I was her age. I was excited it was that, [that] it wasn’t a tattoo that she wanted or piercings, or something. There are so many girls that do it and there could be worse things. As long as she’s a good student, hair is the least of my worries.”

I framed things the same way to my mom when she was initially skeptical of my blue hair experiment. I could do drugs. I could engage in risky sexual activity. I could get myself arrested. I could “rebel” in any number of harmful ways. Instead, I was an honor student goodie two shoes who rarely did anything against the rules and I just dyed my hair. Hair that grows back. Hair that can be dyed back.

Even though I said at the beginning that this isn’t related to gun issues, I think I need to take that back a bit. The principal’s inability to handle a student who dyes her hair red is engaged in the same kind of thinking of not knowing how to distinguish between a real disruption or threat and something that’s just a little bit outside of the lines of “group” behavior that leads to actions like Six Flags banning veterans wearing military-themed shirts from their parks because the military shirt has a firearm. I’m not sure how you fix that kind of stupid by people who simply refuse to think critically and use a little common sense.

Cash in the Gun Control Movement

Miguel catches CSGV trying to argue that there’s just no real money in gun control, as evidenced by the salaries of Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox. Heh. I guess they are unhappy that Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire who personally put nearly Chris’s salary into one single county campaign in recent weeks, isn’t cutting big enough checks to inflate their salaries.

Six Flags Kicks Out Veteran

Due to their perception that all depictions of firearms in all situations – even in the context of military service – are bad, the Six Flags in New Jersey detained and kicked out a veteran and his family because he was wearing a military-themed shirt with a patriotic-gun design featured on it.

According to the report, Mario Alejandro was pulled aside after he entered the gate and told that he would have to leave or purchase a new shirt at the park’s over-inflated prices to cover up his shirt which they said violated their policy on all things “vulgar, offensive or violent.”

So, Six Flags, which category do you put our veterans in? Are they in violation for being vulgar? Do you find veterans and their service offensive? Or do you have an issue with violence that is required to keep all of you safe, comfortable, and free?

This shirt wasn’t a representation of gang violence, and the shirt is clearly labeled with the logo of a foundation that serves Marines and their families. According to the article, the guy made sure to let the many people around him know – loudly – that he was a veteran and being kicked out for wearing a military-themed shirt. I’m glad. I hope they lose business over it.

Six Flags is a Texas company, so I really should be able to expect more out of them. It’s a shame to see them going so extremely anti-gun that they even kick out veterans who used firearms to defend this country.

Pro-Gun Sheriff Wins; Defeats Bloomberg’s Money

There’s a very scary reality that someone with as much money as Bloomberg can put more than $150,000 into a county sheriff’s election and not bat an eye. Money can make things very, very tough to fight when someone saturates the airwaves with a common message during election season.

However, there’s a silver lining in that, ultimately, money doesn’t vote. People vote. That reminder was sent to Mike Bloomberg again last night when the county race he invested so heavily in managed to stay in the hands of a sheriff who believes in the right to defend yourself and your family.

David Clarke retains his office as Milwaukee County Sheriff this morning, even though the Bloomberg-backed challenger is refusing to concede today. Boy, he sure knows how to pick the classy candidates.

Call 911 for Medical Help, Get Arrested

What if someone stabs you in the neck in your own home? You might call 911 for assistance, right? Well, doing that will end up with the police breaking open your gun safe in New Jersey – just so they can see if you have anything they can nab you on, rather than the person who assaulted you.

That’s just what happened when a man called 911 after his wife stabbed him in the neck. They police demanded that he open the safes so they could remove his securely stored firearms. He didn’t cooperate, so they called in a crew to force them open and then arrested him for having too much black powder and ammunition, according to the article. The police also admit that they aren’t closely cataloging the guns, just tossing them in barrels and they’ll get around to it later.

Fourth Amendment Protections Taken Seriously in Arizona

In a case where being polite and cooperating with police quickly turned into commands that a reasonable person would not have felt were optional so that they could leave, the Arizona Supreme Court said that in order to conduct a frisk of a person, “officers must reasonably suspect both that criminal activity is afoot and that the suspect is armed and dangerous.”

The case stems from a stop where multiple officers approached a man who was on the street having a conversation with a woman. They admit that he was polite to them and cooperating fully, and prosecutors apparently tried argued that such polite behavior at the beginning of a stop is a sign of consent to a later search. One of the officers spotted a bulge on the waistband and asked if the man was carrying a firearm. The man admitted that he was, and that’s when officers started commanding him to put his hands on his head, disarmed him, and then later arrested him once they found out he had a prior felony. (The article doesn’t say what that prior record was about.) The Court said that the stop was illegal and therefore they threw out the conviction for being a felon in possession.

Gun issues aside, I’m quite impressed with this quote from the opinion in the article where the Court’s decision said, “police interactions with members of the public are inherently fluid, and what begins as a consensual encounter can evolve into a seizure that prompts Fourth Amendment scrutiny.”

Bloomberg Buying Fake Grassroots Again

According to this letter to the editor, the writer was contacted by Bloomberg’s group to protest the GOP Senate candidate in Iowa. Bloomberg’s people offered to pay for parking, admission, buy them food, and provide him with a t-shirt to wear.

He notes that it seems a little odd that the Democratic Party is attacking the candidate for “special interest money” while looking the other way for groups supporting the Democrats who are paying people to appear involved in their community. It’s not surprising to those of us who watch politics, but it’s a reminder that many people would be shocked by the hypocrisy and find it news that Bloomberg goes so far to try and buy elections.

This is a remarkably effective letter, and I would like to see more of them when people come across examples like this in their communities.