Anti-Gun Folks – Page 12 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Facts are a Matter of Opinion

NRA is Fact Checking the Fact Checkers over Hillary’s endorsement of the Australian Model of gun control. The problem with a lot of these Fact Check sites is that they are fact checking opinion. I’ve seen this in a more contexts than guns. It is a fact that Hillary Clinton endorsed the Australian Model. This is not disputable. But it’s the opinion of the fact checkers that she didn’t really mean it, because her campaign tried to walk it back. Fact checkers should judge facts. They shouldn’t be in the business of discerning whether a politician is lying or spinning for the general public. It’s fine to mention Hillary’s campaign tried to walk back the statement. It’s fine to mention when asked directly about supporting confiscation, she dodges. It’s the ultimate judgement that the claim is false because she’s of course telling the truth that she didn’t really mean it that I have issue with. That should be for the public to decide.

Based on how I see these fact check sites used on social media, their sole purpose is as a mean to allow Democrats to smugly shut down lines of arguments that are potentially damaging to their candidates: “Politifact said it was false, so shut up with your paranoid wing nut NRA talking points.”

Guns Kill Sign Appears Locally

Sebastian reports that someone has posted a “Guns Kill” sign on the PA Turnpike overpass for Bustleton Pike in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania. It just happens to be about a block away from a popular gun shop in the area.

It’s not clear if it’s a coordinated campaign yet, and Sebastian couldn’t get a picture of it since he passed it too quickly.

However, he did say that if some enterprising individual in the area happened to have a rainy Friday off, that a “Control” sign on the end of Gun could easily be added to make the statement far more factual. After all, we support truth in advertising.

A Top Down Movement

I think the gun control folks have always been a little befuddled at our movement. I know of several gun control people on the other side who have been willing to talk to me that I believe assume we all work closely with NRA and take marching orders. In truth, I hardly ever speak with anyone at NRA headquarters or really even other people in the movement. We got to Annual Meeting every year because it’s the only time of year we get to see and talk to other people in this issue.

A “Gun Violence Prevention Day of Action” planned by the Democrats was completely scripted. I too am in possession of the leaked document, and it details a schedule, along with a sample of tweets and hash tags to use in social media. Twitchy has a nice sample of Democrats lining upÂ to participate. If they followed the schedule carefully, the Twitterstorm was only supposed to run from 12:30PM through 1:30PM.

I’ve never gotten anything like this document from anyone in the gun rights movement, because our peopleÂ don’t need prompting to get involved, either don’t need to be coordinated or actively resist efforts to do so. Our people don’t need to be scripted (though I sure wish some of them would think before they open their yaps). Organizing gun owners is herding cats on a good day. The reason they can’t fathom this is because it’s the exact opposite of how their movement works: from the top down.

Sad truth: if the wasn’t for President Obama and Mike Bloomberg, most of the gun control movement would have folded up shop several years ago. Two people have kept this issue alive. That’s not a grassroots movement.

Pat Toomey Reaps the Rewards

Back in March, Sebastian called it when he noted that while Pat Toomey was touting support from CeasefirePA leadership, these are not people who would ever actually cast a vote for him. Granted, we thought that was more of a “won’t vote for you in the privacy of the voting booth” type of prediction, not a “will actively campaign against you despite doing what they wanted” kind of way.

But, it seems that’s how loyalty to gun controllers is rewarded. Toomey’s opponent has been endorsed by the very same group whose leaders were kissing his rear back in March, likely knowing all along that they would throw him under the bus come the run up to November’s general election.

Good call there, Pat.

You know what I was doing 6 years ago in November? Casting a ballot for you, Pat, when polls opened and spending the rest of the day standing outside of a senior citizen’s center asking voters to support your candidacy. You know what I won’t be doing this November? Telling anyone about your campaign – other than the fine readers of this blog about how you screwed us and fell for every pathetic lie from the gun control groups. You can rely on your new best buddies at Ceasefire to help out instead, Pat.

Oh, wait, no, you can’t.

Attorney General Convicted on ALL Charges

Pennsylvania’s proud first female Attorney General hasn’t been able to practice law for months. Tonight, she was found guilty of perjury, obstruction, and other counts of abusing her official position in order to exact illegal revenge on an opponent.

Did I mention that the Clintons are huge supporters?

It shouldn’t be surprising that Kathleen Kane’s attorney indicates that she’s still not going to make any move to resign. The woman won’t give up, despite widespread calls from her party to resign. She has not yet been jailed, but she must come back to court tomorrow to surrender her passport, and she was issued a warning that any hint of retaliation against witnesses will put her behind bars immediately.

Building a “West Coast Wall” Against “Assault Weapons”

After victories on background checks in both Washington State and Oregon, the gun control movement is now looking at making Oregon and Washington the eighth and ninth states to ban “assault weapons.”Â They antis are calling this “The West Coast Wall.”

If the Legislature does nothing, or decides on a substitute, voters would make the final call in November 2017, assuming the petition drive gets enough signatures to force the issue.

Remember, ballot measures go to whoever spends the most money generally, because voters tend to be completely ignorant of complex issues. I’ve been saying for a while now, we’re in a lot of trouble. GunsÂ lost in 2008. The issue lost in 2012. In 2016, Trump gets the nomination, who is an unserious candidate with very serious shortcomings. That said, if Hillary wins, I think it’s over. At that point, it’s a matter of how much we can slow Bloomberg’s drive to get a couple more states in his column. It will no longer be an offensive game. We’re already starting to see that.

Obvious targets for the antis: New Hampshire, Maine, Washington, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Colorado… basically any place that Dems are competitive but still have not fallen to anti-gun forces. How long before Virginia, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin become in play?

If you think about it, we’re in big heap trouble if we can’t start making our case. It doesn’t take political involvement, necessarily. Get involved in clubs, and get them involved in the fight. Get involved with local politics on behalf of gun rights. Get FFLs involved. Volunteer to work gun shows for NRA. All this stuff is important. We’ve become lost as a movement because we’ve allowed Obama to drive us crazy and lose all sense. We’ve driven away Democrats who might have some sympathies. We’ve forgotten how to beÂ a single-issue movement. We’ve grown too dependent sharing stupid, ill-informed, and often false memes on social media rather than educating ourselves. We’ve fallen victim to talking heads and media companies that tells us soothing things we want to hear, play on our emotions and weaknesses, and feed our worst instincts rather than help us become more effective at the game.

That is what I’ve tried to do here for a decade, and in the past four years I’ve slowly watched things get worse. Things have to start getting better, and fast, or we’re done for.

Apple Getting Deeper Down the SJW Rabbit Hole

I have been a Mac user off and on (mostly on) since College. Bitter also became a convert. Since Tim Cook has taken over Apple, it’s been downhill from there. Not only has Apple’s quality control suffered under Cook, but the company has become overly political, and taken sides in the culture wars. Everyone knew Steve Jobs was a hippie, but he was careful to keep Apple out of controversial issues. Now Apple has decided to purge firearm emojis from their operating system, and replace them with water guns. Yeah, fuck you Tim Cook.

This weekend I did something I hadn’t done in years: installed Windows on one of my Macs. I did not do this for full time purposes: there’s a game I’m playing that works on both Windows, Mac, and Linux. But it turns out that Apple’s OpenGL support on Nvidia hardware has been a hot mess since Yosemite. The creators of the game apologize profusely for the problems, but the fact is that the constant crashing and weird screen artifacts are caused by bugs in Apple’s NVidia drivers. Additionally, I lose about 10fps over Windows, again, because of bad OpenGL support on the Mac. These aren’t the only persisting quality control issues Apple has been having. I could go on, and on.

So I may start transitioning to the PC world. For me it almost feels like selling out, but I’m not sure Microsoft is the evil empire they used to be. Now that’s Facebook and Google. Apple, I worry, is headed for tough times again. I was still loyal during the reign of Michael Spindler and Gil Amelio. I have been through tough times with Apple, but they have become “The Man.” They have abandoned me as a user, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t also abandon them. If I move to the Windows or back to the Desktop Linux world (Linux on the Desktop honestly still sucks), I’m certainly not going to pay the price premium for Apple’s hardware.

Congratulations Tim Cook. I’ve stood by a lot of suck from Apple, but you’re a sucky bridge too far.

Is The Brady Campaign Abandoning “Assault Weapons” Issue?

Says Dan Gross of the Brady Campaign:

â€œThere is a very specific type of gun that we want banned â€“ none of them,â€ said Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign. â€œAll we are trying to do is keep guns out of the hands of people we all agree that shouldnâ€™t have them. Whether you love or hate guns, you agree that a convicted violent criminal, domestic abuser, someone who is dangerously mentally ill, or a would-be terrorist should not be able to get their hands on guns.â€

Could have fooled me, Dan. Yep, not for bans at all. I have no idea how anyone could think otherwise. I get that Gross is a serial liar on par with Hillary Clinton, but this really stretches credulity. They are absolutely supportive of banning specific types of guns. If the Brady Campaign wished to change its stripes, it would have removed any reference to these pages. All gun control organizations favor banning any gun they have the political power to ban. Assault Weapons were just convenient targets after the movement to ban handguns went nowhere. It has nothing to do with crime control.

Massachusetts only had two crimes committed with “Assault Weapons” in the past five years, yet their Attorney General still chose by fiat to grossly expand the ban. The only proponent of gun control who’s been willing to be honest about what a farce this issue is has been Professor Adam Winkler. In some ways, this issue has been beneficial to gun rights activists because it motivates our coalition to action. As I’ve said before, I’d hate to be dealing with a gun control movement that was very careful to not overreach.

Early Gun Control Meant to Disarm Blacks

For their own good, you see. This was the 1927 law that banned mailing of handguns through US Post Offices. The more things change, the more they stay the same. I’m reminded of this C.S. Lewis quote:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

I think that describes a lot of our opponents in this fight.

Democratic VP candidate announced

Hillary’s VP pick is VA Senator (and former governor) Tim Kaine – who has something of a record.