Category: Anti-Gun Folks

Two years ago today, mock stories appeared in the April Fool’s Day edition of The Outdoor Wire, and one stuck out at me as more of a potential prediction than a joke:

Brady Center Ceases Operations
Blames SCOTUS for “dwindling finances and shrinking support”
Washington, D.C. – “We fought a hard fight, and lost. The people have spoken.” That’s the terse explanation offered up on the Brady Center’s website, announcing the dissolution of the longtime organization. An overwhelming majority decision (7-2) by the Supreme Court in 2008 that affirmed the individual right of firearms ownership led to a sweeping nationwide rejection of anti-firearms legislation and a precipitous decline in Brady Center financial support. As the Brady organization crumbled, the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups saw memberships and coffers swell, allowing the NRA’s legislative action group to challenge and overturn what the NRA-ILA has described as “ridiculous” or “unenforceable” laws nationwide.

It’s possible that the only things wrong about this silly joke were the vote count (we won by 5-4), the Center closing shop before the Campaign, and the timing.

Looking at the Brady Campaign & Brady Center form 990s from 2004-2008, there is an unmistakable trend that may herald the real need to write the “joke” headline. Consider that the Brady Campaign – the legislative arm of the gun control organization – has seen donations drop off by more than 53% from 2004-2008. (The latest data available is from 2008, as 2009 tax documents are likely being filed now.) Total revenue that factors in revenue from assets and investments as well as the donations, is off slightly more – by more than 54% in the same time period. Unfortunately for them, the Brady Campaign has not been as successful at slashing expenses.

All I can say is ouch. That’s gotta hurt in a big way. I’m going to assume that the leveling off of expenses means they have slashed as much as possible without cutting significant staff or consultants. Obviously, that will have to change. A drop like this can’t simply be blamed on the recession, especially since the drops started two years before the official start of the downturn. (I don’t have data prior to 2004, so the drop may have started long before then.)

But upon seeing this, I suggested to Sebastian that perhaps they were re-aligning and putting more staff onto the Brady Center’s payroll – that is, their foundation division. It’s amazing how changing a few words can make it so you’re no longer lobbying for change, but merely educating lawmakers about the issues. Yes, it’s perfectly legal. To find out, we opened up all of their 990s from the same period, 2004-2008.

As you can see, they aren’t having much luck, either. Total revenue is down about $800K over 4 years, and expenses haven’t been consistently cut to match. The Center has been much better about keeping a nest egg of assets than the Campaign, but thanks to spending more than they receive in donations, even that cushion is down by more than 10% over the last 4 years.

In fact, at the end of 2008, the Brady Campaign was actually in the red by more than $450K. We can presume they spent 2009 fundraising like the devil and slashing expenses to make up for that, but it 2009 wasn’t exactly a great year for non-profits with so much uncertainty in the economy. The Brady Center, as mentioned before, has done much better about making sure it has some money to fall back on, so they had just under $2 million in savings.

So I guess the real question is: In what year does the April Fool’s gag of 2008 actually come true?

He joins with the Brady crowd that the Administration isn’t doing squat to further Mayors Against Illegal Guns Gun Control agenda. Apparently Bloomberg sent a scathing letter to Obama demanding that more be done. Because you know, beating up on gun owners after pissing everyone off on health care worked so well for the Democrats in 1994. Here’s what Bloomberg had to say:

“We appreciate the Department’s consideration of the report, but this is an urgent matter: further delay will almost certainly result in the needless loss of innocent lives, including many children. Mr. President, the time has come for action,” the mayors write. “Over the past six months, approximately 6,000 Americans have been gunned down in intentional acts of violence. The 40 recommendations in our Blueprint, many of which could be enacted immediately, offer the best hope we have for making our country safer over the next six months – and the years ahead.”

It’s for the children, you see. Man. Add some caps lock action to that and it could have been written by Abby Spangler. Think of the CHILDREN, and the SCONES. WHY WON’T ANYONE THINK OF THE SCONES!?!?!?!?

They are noting the anniversary of the Reagan Assassination attempt, where Jim Brady was shot and disabled by a bullet to the head, but the headline reads, “Jim and Sarah Brady: We’re Safer Thanks to Their Anti-Gun Efforts.” So is Brady admitting this isn’t about reasonable gun laws, but about being “anti-gun?”  I thought they hated that term. Now to be fair, I’ve had Opposing Views manipulate a few of my headlines, and maybe that’s the case here, but it seems like a fair manipulation to me if that was the case.

UPDATE: Their blog post on the subject is called “Making Lemonade,” so it woud seem this is an OV manipulation on the headline. Like I said, I’ve had them alter a few of mine too. Mine they did for the sake of clarity, but it would seem to me the OV editors ought to avoid making wholesale changes to the language, especially if they don’t know the issue well.

VPC seems to want to imply that Thirdpower, a veteran who has served and continues to serve his country, is barely literate. They suggest he needs to do “more readin’ and less shootin’ bub.” Regardless of the merits of their argument, I find this to be mean spirited and rude, and telling of the stereotypes and prejudices the folks at the VPC apparently have about gun owners.

I might have even been willing to concede VPC’s point on the quote, since they only directly quoted “I’m done,” but their paraphrase of the rest could conceivably change the definition of the quote, depending on whether there’s a dropped comma between “away” and “from.” In the context presented, the quote doesn’t make much sense. Thirdpower’s accusation that the meaning was altered is entirely plausible.

Looks like the Brady Campaign is surveying its list, I’m going to guess because of the signatures they got on the Starbucks Petition. This is something NRA has been doing for a while now, actually, though not in this level of detail. I’ve said that even though, so far, the Brady Campaign has lost the Battle of the Coffee and Scones, as I will now dub it, they won just by fighting. Now they have 33,000 new people they will want more information about so they can target with mailings and alerts, and more importantly fundraising letters.

I’m going to ask pro-gun people not to fill out the form to mess with them. If you do, you will be counted among the Brady Supporters the next time they march into a politician or corporate leader’s office and demand they do something. Brady is not a membership organization like NRA is, they use the standard DC model, which is if you’re on their mailing list, you’re a supporter.

UPDATE: Well, OK, if you’re going to make it that obvious :)

I think this deceased equine by now is pretty thorough flogged, so I wasn’t going to respond to the Brady’s latest here on this blog, but since Opposing Views is a new place I figured I’d respond there. I thought it’d be a good idea to get into the debate there, despite there already being a good pro-gun presence, because Opposing Views has the benefit of being rated by Google as a news source instead of a blog. The gun folks over at Examiner.com also share that advantage. Blogs are good and useful, but if you’re a traditional blog, you’ll never be anything more than that to Google, but if you can get your message out onto something Google News can pick up, that’s something different. It’s important for our message to appear there too.

Dennis Hennigan of the Brady Center is misrepresenting Barr and Gottlieb’s, and by proxy all concerns about open carry:

Implicitly, Barr and Gottlieb are advising gun owners who want to carry guns in public to keep them concealed from view; that is, make sure the danger is hidden. Perhaps this exposes their real concern about the open carry movement – that it eventually will cause a surge in public concern about the far more prevalent concealed carrying of guns made possible by the gun lobby-supported “shall-issue” laws passed in most states during the last two decades making it far easier to obtain licenses to carry concealed weapons. They also likely fear that open carry may intensify public opposition to recent efforts to gradually expand the locations in which concealed carry may occur -such as parks, bars, college campuses, even airports. After all, it’s not the “openness” of open carry that scares people – it’s the presence of the guns themselves and the inherent danger they entail. The only reason there is not an equivalent reaction to concealed carry is that the danger is, by definition, hidden from view.

He seems to believe that Barr and Gottlieb are somehow tacitly acknowledging the danger. There is no significant public danger from the open carry movement. The “danger” is the Brady Campaign doing exactly what they are doing now: trying to use the issue to push their agenda and to divide our movement.

Concealed carry laws don’t exactly have low levels of support. Even in Iowa, the latest battleground for concealed carry reform, opposition doesn’t beat 50%. But what Dennis understands is that public policy isn’t made by poll, but by determined minorities. If the 43% of Iowans that want to reform the concealed carry laws are motivated to do so, while the opposition is passive, reform wins. What they are looking for is getting some of that passive opposition to turn active.

The concern Gottlieb and Barr have is not that the public will suddenly realize the danger, and the gig will be up. The concern is that, much like the public is willing to acquiesce or support equal rights for homosexuals, they might not be so keen on the idea if they believe that means they’ll see gay sex everywhere in public. The analogy to guns may not be perfect, but many people who generally don’t care about or are soft supporters of people being able to carry firearms for self-defense might have a second thought if that means they think society will turned into an armed camp.

That shouldn’t really be our goal. Our goal should be that people who want to or need to carry a firearm for self-defense be able to do so, following their own judgments about their individual circumstances and situation. Whether that right is exercised through open carry or concealed carry I could care less about. What I do care about, however, are activism methods that have the potential to create a public backlash. The fact that the Brady folks have suddenly jumped on this issue, after its been gaining traction for years, makes me wonder if someone on their side of the issue has paid for a focus group, and we’re now seeing Brady attempt to exploit the opportunity.

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