Bitter – Page 92 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Showing Your Cards

When we started looking at the new Brady boycott of Starbucks, we wondered if they would be silly enough to show their cards. I assumed they wouldn’t when they were making crazy claims like this:

Because we outnumber the NRAâ€™s extremist members by 50 to 1, NGACâ€™s economic lever gives our side a strategy the NRA cannot defeat.

There’s simply nothing to actually back that up. Under the supervision of actual DC professionals, the official Brady Starbucks protest of two years ago kept their numbers secret for a reason. They collected the “petitions” in order to build their email list, and they could then claim to do “something” even if no one signed other than the staff and board members. This new Brady division seems to have forgotten some of those key points.

They actually started a competing Facebook event for their boycott. As of this post, they have 137 planned attendees. Okay, so maybe it’s still something that Starbucks could be losing 137 customers. However, looking at the comments on their wall, that’s not the case. Here’s a sample:

“reeeely EZ to boycott a place I never go lol”
“Oh I have HATED coffee shops for many many years..EASY PEASY!”
“I ALWAYS boycott Starbucks because of Schultz’ views about Palestine”
“I have always boycotted Starbucks.”
“I don’t do Starbucks because I don’t drink coffee.”
“I am in a perpetual boycott of their sub par hot chocolate and overpriced pretentious products.”
“This may not be as difficult for me as some others. I’ve never been in a Starbucks.”
“I HAVE NEVER BEEN IN A STARBUCKS FACILITY BUT I SUPPORT WHAT YOU ARE DOING BECAUSE YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A CONSIENCIOUS PERSON WHO ADVOCATED FOR ISSUES THAT WERE IMPORTANT TO PEOPLE.”
“I quit using Starbucks more than a year ago, but I totally support your efforts on this important issue!!”

There are like two people who have said that they ever visit Starbucks and may reconsider during the boycott. Otherwise, Starbucks is only being “boycotted” by people who already don’t shop there.

Meanwhile, on our side, our folks are going out of their way to support the company. Those who are regular customers are planning on buying a little extra on February 14, so ultimately they win. As of this post, Starbucks is gaining more than 9,200 customers old and new on February 14. So, yeah. Those numbers make the case pretty clearly. Which is why I’m still shocked they actually wanted to show their cards like this.

UPDATE: I guess they were tired of us showing over and over how low their numbers really are since they have now hidden the number of attendees from their Facebook event page. Thirdpower has a screenshot from yesterday morning when they had 132 attendees.

Scott Bach for NRA Board of Directors Video

This year, NRA board candidate Scott Bach also decided to put together a video highlighting some of his work on behalf of gun owners in the last few years. Take a look at it, and I think you’ll see why we consider him worth your support.

Missing Your NRA Ballot?

If you’re an NRA voting member, you should have received your ballot magazine in the mail by now. If you did, then you can go right back to our endorsement post and fill out the little circles next to the names of all of those fine gentlemen.

However, I be a good number of you are about to start commenting and emailing that you never got your ballot this year! Type and rant away…please. Unless you belong to one of the following groups:

You live in Hawaii. (I’m jealous.)
You went green (or simply hassle-free) and get your magazine digitally.
You just recently became eligible to vote.
You don’t take a magazine at all.

This isn’t the full list of exemptions, but it’s the overwhelming majority. I’m in this category because of the digital subscription.

Anyway, we all get our ballots by first class mail, and the first mailing is going out on February 1. So, provided Congress doesn’t say to hell with it and shut down the USPS, your ballot should arrive sometime shortly after this date. I presume that members in Hawaii get their ballots by first class mail because of the snail’s pace mail at other classes can take to get out there.

For anyone who has recently become eligible to vote or will become so before the “deadline” in mid-February, there will be another first class mailing towards the end of February.

If you are not in any of those categories and your February magazine has not yet arrived, give it a little extra time. It’s not impossible that mail is moving a little slower right now, as it has been for us for the last couple of months. I would say that if you still haven’t received it by February 4, give NRA a call and inquire. You will probably need to ask to speak with the Secretary’s Office about a missing ballot, but they may have procedures for their standard member number phone folks to handle it with so many different kinds of ballots now going out thanks to the digital subscriptions.

David Coy for NRA Board of Directors Video Introduction

I am almost always happy to see it when candidates for the NRA Board of Directors try new ways to engage with NRA members. There are certainly enough empty seats on the Board, and there are many who you simply won’t ever have the chance to engage with if you don’t live in their state.

Anyway, David Coy put this together for his 2011 run, but I think it’s an introduction worth sharing this year.

Unexpected Economic Indicators

I love the Wall Street Journal and the fact that they can make almost any economic story interesting. For example, the leading gong salesman in the U.S. Yes, gongs.

When the economy was going gangbusters, salesmen were piling into gongs. Sales people seem to like making customers bang gongs to ease the pain of buying something they might not be able to afford.

“But as soon as the recession hit, bam! It stopped,” says Mr. Borakove. Gong sales shifted over to the meditation market. “Because when people go broke,” he says, “they get spiritual.”

Turns out there are a few folks in the gong business, and they aren’t joking about the spiritual aspect of gongs. Their top buyers now are yoga instructors and people who are buying “planet gongs,” probably related to the end of the world predictions.

The gong dealer says that Countrywide was a buyer during the subprime crazy selling days. This should be a warning sign. Any business that thought it was a good idea to buy a giant gong probably deserves to go out of business with a few exceptions.

Another random fact I find amusing is that the tv show “Scrubs” can singlehandedly boost gong sales.

That reminded Mr. Borakove of the “Scrubs” episode where J.D. says to Julie, “Um, now it’s time to ring the sex gong.” Whenever that line airs, no matter where in the world, gong orders pour into Gongs Unlimited.

The New Era of Anti-Gun Groups

Strategically, the smartest opponents to the right to bear arms are now based out of the offices of a billionaire in New York City. The folks who are headquartered in Washington, DC have been on the decline.

But here’s what I find interesting. Sebastian noted that the National Gun Victims Action Council are “a particularly whacked out fringe group” based on their very bizarre claims and goals. First of all, they carry this warning in large red letters on their website:

CAUTION

Whenever you hear ANYTHING about guns that seems appealing, reasonable or factual KNOW IT IS PROBABLY NOT TRUE. For the facts contact us at: info@gunvictimsaction.org

Second, they really do work on the assumption that every person in the U.S. should be a presumed future criminal with claims like this: Fact: Every criminal was once law abiding citizen.

Third, instead of the standard Brady talking points that they don’t actually want to come for our guns, NGAC outright admits their goal is to come take our guns away: Any sane gun law will lead to the government being able to take your guns away.

What’s interesting is that their boycott is not based on the idea that they don’t want to be around gun owners while they enjoy their scones and frappuccinos, it’s actual goal is to force Starbucks to donate to NGAC. To end the boycott will require Starbucks ban all guns from its storesâ€”and become a major supporter of policies to reduce gun violence. In other words, banning guns isn’t enough. They will demand that corporations line the pockets of the leaders of this group in order to end the boycott.

But here’s the very interesting thing about the National Gun Victims Action Council: They are the Brady Campaign.

From their Board biographies:

Elliot Fineman is a senior member of the Brady PACâ€“Illinois, the group that makes endorsements on behalf of the Brady Campaign in Illinois.
Andrew Goddard is the President of the Richmond Chapter of the Million Mom March, a division of the Brady Campaign.
Lori Oâ€™Neill is the past President & Vice President of the Million Mom March of Cleveland which she calls the “grassroots arm of the Brady Campaign.”
Jeanne Bishop has served as President of the North Suburban Chicagoland Million Mom March Chapter and lists herself as a general Brady Campaign volunteer.
Griffin Dix was Chairman of the Brady Campaignâ€™s Million Mom March National State Presidents Council and the chapter-elected member of the Brady Campaign Board of Trustees.
Bill Jenkins is married to the National Program Director for Victims and Survivors for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and represents the organization with his wife at public events.
Thom Mannard is a founding member of the Brady PAC-Illinois.
Alice Thomas-Norris is the President of the Million Moms March Chicago Chapter of Survivors for the Brady Campaign.
Tom Vanden Berk is a board member of the Brady Campaign/Million Mom March.
Amanda & Nick Wilcox are Legislative Co-Chairs of the California Chapters of the Brady Campaign as well as leaders of the Sacramento Valley Chapter and the Nevada County Brady Campaign Chapter.
Willie Williams works with the Brady Campaign to target pro-rights lawmakers in Illinois during election years.
Heidi Yewman is the Washington state president of the Million Mom March/Brady Campaign.

In other words, out of 16 people listed on NGAC’s board, 13 are in the Brady Campaign leadership. Most are state leaders, but several are national leaders.

So, given that this new unofficial arm of the Brady Campaign is turning towards a mission of embracing extreme gun control & extended boycotts, it looks like the folks who recognize at least some limits of Heller & McDonald have been run out of the organization. This suddenly makes much more sense when it comes to Helmke’s departure. Whereas he probably didn’t think it was wise to keep spending money trying to promote boycotts and petition drives to private corporations that weren’t working, they don’t want to relent. When he conceded that Heller took door-to-door confiscation off the table for the time being, they don’t consider that limitation to be within the realm of sanity. Certainly, this explains a lot of the odd behavior we’ve seen out of what was once the dominant gun control organization in the country over the last year and a half.

Philly’s Murder Problem

We’ve covered for months the fact that Philadelphia is cooking the books when it comes to reporting murders in the city. Even when murders are up over last year, they keep their little green downward pointing arrow posted.

Those are the current numbers. In the first 23 days of the year, Philly has had 27 murders. That’s 1.17 murders per day so far. But their little PR people want you to believe that crime is on the decline and everything is just fine as long as that little green arrow points down. Move along and don’t ask questions, sheeple.

NRA Board of Director Election 2012 – Endorsements

It’s that time of year again. As you start to receive the ballots for the NRA Board of Directors Elections in your mailboxes, we hope you’ll consider casting a vote for some of the candidates we believe contribute something unique to the Board.

***Scott Bach – Newfoundland, New Jersey

When most gun owners have given up on New Jersey, Scott has stayed to fight. He defends gun owners regardless of their interest â€“ .50 caliber bans, bear hunters, collectors who want the freedom to buy more than one gun a month, and many more. Scott is the Executive Director of the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, the state organization leading the fight for gun rights in the Garden State. Heâ€™s an attorney who has used his skills and network to defend both the First & Second Amendment. When a public school was caught sending home anti-gun literature, he sued to mandate that pro-gun literature be honored in the same way. When NY/NJ Port Authority police locked up a Utah man for lawfully traveling with firearms, Bach put the resources of ANJRPC to work to sue the officials who unlawfully arrested him in violation of federal protections. Through ANJRPC, Scott also works with competitive shooters and manages a large shooting range. Their member clubs have trained Olympic shooters. He is also a member of state groups in seven other states, actively supporting their efforts with what he has learned from the political and cultural fights to preserve gun rights in New Jersey.

Scott also gets new media and the importance of embracing new technology to advance the issue, and at one time, he launched his own blog on the Star-Ledgerâ€™s website to counter the anti-gun Bryan Miller. He has done interviews to discuss his thoughts on how new media can be leveraged to advance the Second Amendment and develop the shooting sports as well as where he saw the push for our rights headed in light of Heller the last time he ran for the board. He notes that the ANJRPC range may have been the first in the country to offer its members free wifi in the clubhouse.

***Joseph DeBergalis – Buffalo, New York

Joe DeBergalis is a career law enforcement professional fighting for gun rights in New York as Vice-President of the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association. Heâ€™s also a competitive shooter in pistol, rifle, and shotgun sports, as well as a certified instructor.

DeBergalis has put his background to good use by serving as the Chair of the Education & Training Committee, Vice-Chair of the Action Pistol Committee of the Board. Heâ€™s no slacker politically, either. Heâ€™s the Election Volunteer Coordinator for four New York Congressional Districts and the District of Columbia. On the new media front, he’s a moderator at AR15.com and Match Chairman of AR15.com/Rockcastle Shooting Complex Pro AM Three Gun Championship.

Itâ€™s worth noting his work in New York, and not just because itâ€™s a challenging state. Other pro-gun leaders in the state have heaped praise on Joe for his efforts there, and that speaks volumes for his usefulness in serving the pro-Second Amendment cause. Here’s his take on what gun owners could do to get more people involved in our community.

***Jeffrey Crane – Annapolis, Maryland

As President of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, Jeff Crane knows how to make sure hunting & shooting sports aren’t overlooked by Congress. He currently serves on the Wildlife and Hunting Heritage Conservation Council that advises the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture on agency activities that related to our the hunting and shooting communities. He has recently been serving on the NRA’s Hunting and Wildlife Conservation Committee and the Government Affairs Committee for Safari Club International.

In his role with CSF, Jeff also oversees sportsmen’s caucuses in 38 state capitals. Some are more active than others, but they’ve played an important role over the years not just working on hunting policy, but also worked on general gun issues in their states. The caucuses are a vehicle to help organize friendly lawmakers and get them talking about the issues.

I realize that this is heavily hunting, but that’s because it’s his background. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t “get” the Second Amendment or gun ownership for self-defense or the shooting sports. Considering NRA has to have a well-rounded board to represent all parties interested in our rights, we believe that Jeff would make an absolutely great addition to the Board to represent hunting rights and the shooting sports while making sure that the core issues in the Second Amendment debates are heard by leaders.

***David Coy – Adrian, Michigan

If there was one thing we have heard in the last year from board members, staffers, and people who pay attention to the needs of running NRA as an organization, it was that David Coy, an accounting professor from Michigan, needed to be put back onto the Board of Directors. Unfortunately, he was just under 2,500 votes shy of re-election last year, and he passed on running a campaign for 76th Director to someone else. That’s not because he is unwilling to serve, though.

His biography doesn’t sound nearly as exciting on the shooting front as some because his financial background is most needed on the Audit & Finance Committees. In other words, he contributes to the areas that keeps NRA running, not just the fun stuff at the range. (Though, he has also served on shooting sports committees, too.) The strengths we had highlighted to us over and over by so many people were his knowledge subjects of accounting, financial reporting, and internal control procedures for non-profit organizations. Besides the number crunching, he’s also active in the political battles as an Election Volunteer Coordinator.

***Joel Friedman – Pasadena, California

As the 76th Director, Joel has had to run twice in the last couple of years, and he could use the help to secure a three year term on the board. We sat down with him in Pittsburgh and talked about various issues, namely the struggles of gun owners in California.

He plays well with other organizations, as evidenced by this endorsement thread by several folks involved in Calguns. Based on much of the history you can find on the web, Joel has been involved in the many sides of this issue that need attention & support in a state that is otherwise so frustrating to gun owners. Whether it’s the NRA Foundation & shooting sports & youth programs supported by the Friends of NRA or the legislative battles at the state level, you can find he’s been involved at every level.

________

As always, there are plenty of good people on the ballot. Just because we did not list someone here does not mean they aren’t worthy of a seat on the board. These are people we have either worked with directly or know enough about their contributions to the organization that they stand out and deserve your vote.

In the next few weeks, we’ll put up videos from the candidates and more.

The Truth about Mitt Romney’s Record on Guns

Let me start this post by injecting a little dose of political reality. The GOP field is what we’ve got to run against Obama, and that’s it. It doesn’t matter who shoulda/woulda/coulda run, the only ones who put themselves on the ballots are the only choices voters have in 2012. As much as I would love for Tim Pawlenty to still be in this race, he opted to drop out. I’ve seen people lament Mitch Daniels not entering the race, and don’t get me started on how many folks would cheer Paul Ryan making a run for the White House. None of that matters. None of those men put themselves on the ballot for president.

If Mitt ends up winning the race because GOP voters choose him in the nation’s primaries, gun owners need to know the truth about Mitt Romney’s record on guns as Governor of Massachusetts. I have said before many, many times that as a gun owner in Massachusetts during his term, I was extremely active in the efforts to fight more gun control. Guess who was on our side for that battle? Mitt.

As the state’s most active gun rights group notes in their write-up on Romney’s record, gun owners were able to make more reforms to the state’s oppressive gun laws under Mitt than they had in more than 20 years.

During the Romney Administration, no anti-Second Amendment or anti-sportsmen legislation made its way to the Governorâ€™s desk.

Governor Romney did sign five pro-Second Amendment/pro-sportsmen bills into law. His administration also worked with Gun Ownersâ€™ Action League and the Democratic leadership of the Massachusetts House and Senate to remove any anti-Second Amendment language from the Gang Violence bill passed in 2006.

But what’s this? Didn’t you get the forwarded email from GOA and NAGR that Mitt went around and personally confiscated every firearm he called an “assault weapon” from gun owners in Massachusetts? I kid, but the exaggeration doesn’t seem terribly far off from some of the claims I’ve seen floating around the internet written by people who were not in the Bay State at the time and have no idea what gun laws were like before Mitt took office.

Massachusetts already had an AWB that was actually worse than the federal ban in unique ways. On the surface, it was exactly the same because it was partially tied to language in the federal ban. The state ban that was already on the books didnâ€™t have an expiration date â€“ their way of making sure that no matter what happened to the federal ban, the state ban would stand. In theory, when the federal ban expired, what was already on the books in Massachusetts would have just kept the same limits in effect. However, close reading revealed some big dangers for gun owners.

The state ban, in addition to no expiration date, didnâ€™t have the list of nearly 700 exempted guns that the federal ban allowed. In other words, lawful gun owner would become illegal assault weapons owner overnight and probably never understand why. If an enterprising prosecutor wanted to build up some gun convictions very quickly without much work, he or she could suddenly go after every owner of an M-1 Carbine, Mini-14, Marlin Model 60, or Ruger 10/22 (or other guns on this list) and have a collection of â€œassault weaponâ€ criminals locked up.

The original bill was written by an anti-gun senator who planned to expand the federal AWB dramatically. I donâ€™t even remember all the crap he wanted to ban, but it was absurd. However, he introduced it as the federal law was getting ready to expire so he could claim that he was merely making sure the same federal ban remained in place at the state level. Reporters never bothered to check that the state already had their own version with no expiration date (and no list of exempted guns), so they ate up his talking points. Gun owners managed to get enough pressure on lawmakers to strip out all of the expansion provisions, put in a bunch of reforms, and add one little bit of language to the state ban that was already on the books before Romney ever took office. They formally tied the state ban to the federal ban in a way that preserved the list of exempted guns.

So, what you really should be saying is that legislators managed to SAVE nearly 700 guns from being suddenly declared unlawful in the state, add in several reforms to licensing that were a problem, and put the stops on an anti-gun bill in a creative way that the media never saw coming.

Here is GOAL’s full write-up of what the bill did for gun owners in the Bay State:

1) Established the Firearm License Review Board (FLRB). The 1998 law created new criteria for disqualifying citizens for firearms licenses that included any misdemeanor punishable by more than two years even if no jail time was ever served.

For instance, a first conviction of operating a motor vehicle under the influence would result in the loss of your ability to own a handgun for life and long guns for a minimum of five years. This Board is now able to review cases under limited circumstances to restore licenses to individuals who meet certain criteria.

2) Mandated that a minimum of $50,000 of the licensing fees be used for the operation of the FLRB so that the Board would not cease operating under budget cuts.

3) Extended the term of the stateâ€™s firearm licenses from 4 years to 6 years.

4) Permanently attached the federal language concerning assault weapon exemptions in 18 USC 922 Appendix A to the Massachusetts assault weapons laws. This is the part that the media misrepresented.

In 1998 the Massachusetts legislature passed its own assault weapons ban (MGL Chapter 140, Section 131M). This ban did not rely on the federal language and contained no sunset clause. Knowing that we did not have the votes in 2004 to get rid of the state law, we did not want to loose all of the federal exemptions that were not in the state law so this new bill was amended to include them.

5) Re-instated a 90 day grace period for citizens who were trying to renew their firearm license. Over the past years, the government agencies in charge had fallen months behind in renewing licenses. At one point it was taking upwards of a year to renew a license. Under Massachusetts law, a citizen cannot have a firearm or ammunition in their home with an expired license.

6) Mandated that law enforcement must issue a receipt for firearms that are confiscated due to an expired license. Prior to this law, no receipts were given for property confiscated which led to accusations of stolen or lost firearms after they were confiscated by police.

7) Gave free license renewal for law enforcement officers who applied through their employing agency.

8) Changed the size and style of a firearm license to that of a driverâ€™s license so that it would fit in a normal wallet. The original license was 3â€ x 4â€.

9) Created stiffer penalties for armed home invaders.

They have a full list of other things Mitt signed and did during his term to improve the situation for the state’s gun owners. Were there setbacks under him? Yes. To his people’s credit, they did work to correct the situation. I only hope he still has those folks who learned their lesson on the issue around him. If you want an idea of many of his missteps, go read the full report from GOAL because they do include them.

I say all of this not because I’m trying to shill for the man. I’m not actually a fan of Mitt Romney’s, and I don’t anticipate voting for him in the Pennsylvania primary. However, if the other Republican voters around the country choose him as the candidate, I believe we are doing our constituency a disservice if we aren’t honest about Mitt’s record on gun rights.

Will Mitt, if elected, appoint fantastic pro-Second Amendment judges and justices? I hope so, but I realize there’s no guarantee. What I do know is that based on what we have seen from Obama’s appointments, we will absolutely get more anti-Second Amendment justices out of a second term. I’d rather take my chances with a president who may be willing to listen to me, along with millions of other gun owners who are concerned about our rights. Whether it’s on the issue of judicial appointments or signing bills, I realize the reality of our chances with Obama in the Oval Office versus a candidate like Mitt Romney.

All of that said, why did TPaw have to bow out so soon? *sob*

A Measure of Excitement?

One of the factors in determining the outcome of the 2012 presidential election will likely be how excited 2008 Obama voters are to get out and vote again. Think the Occupy movement knocking on doors and registering voters. Yeah, that will be fun.

But, with all that hate toward Republicans, how are those former Obama voters feeling about their guy this election? This might be one clue:

The uncontested primary of an unchallenged incumbent doesn’t mean much, but it can perhaps be taken as some kind of measure of intensity, partisan loyalty, or simple willingness to show up to and be counted.

And by those measures, George W. Bush handily defeated Barack Obama in New Hampshire last night.

The story compares the uncontested primary for Bush to the uncontested primary for Obama. But, there are also many data points lacking in the article. For example, how did each compare to the percentage of registered party voters? Regardless, we’ll have lots of points to compare once the primary really gets going.

Have any readers been visited by campaigns yet?