Anti-Gun Folks – Page 16 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Is the Increasing Number of Women in Shooting a Myth?

Bloomberg’s propaganda branch can whine all they want about the General Social Survey. No one who’s been in this issue for any appreciable amount of time doesn’t believe more women are becoming gun owners. Gun shows around here used to be a sausage fest, and now you see the whole family out, women included. There are a lot more women at the NRA Annual Meeting exhibit floor than there was when I started attending yearly in 2007. I’m seeing more women members joining our club. They can argue it’s anecdotal all they want, but everybody who regularly deal with the ordinary gun-owning public is reporting the same thing.

The problem with the General Social Survey, and other surveys like it, is that it doesn’t measure actual gun ownership. It measures the number of people who are willing to tell a pollster they own guns. You can even see it in their graph: when gun owners are under attack, the numbers go down. When the crisis passes, they go back up. There are plenty of people who will not answer to a stranger they own firearms.

They are in denial because if they lose women, they lose their movement. Women have been the drivers of gun control, traditionally, and with more of them coming over to our side, it will put them in desperate straits. In truth, as long as Bloomberg is willing to continue single-handedly funding the gun control movement, it’ll continue to harass us and our rights, but without women, harassing us is about all they can hope for. They won’t succeed in their real goal, which is the destruction of those rights.

What Does the Merger of Law Center with Gifford’s Organization Mean?

Since my time has been short this week, by now most of you have probably heard from other sources that Gabby Giffords group, Americans for Responsible Solutions has merged with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. I’ve read several takes on this, and usually when something like this happens, it means one of them was too short on money to continue functioning. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, without Bloomberg’s money coming into the fight, most of these gun control groups would have either folded up shop years ago, or would have descended into a jobs program for a small handful of passionate, yet irrelevant people. Bloomberg’s money is the only thing keeping this issue alive.

Giffords was pretty successful at fundraising for her PAC from high-profile billionaires, including Bloomberg, but fundraising for their 501(c)(4) started out strong, but then took a dive. Could be Giffords and Kelly were just tired and wanted out. But it’s hard to believe that finances didn’t play a role, even if the group’s trouble was long term. I haven’t seen recent 990s from Brady yet. I can’t imagine they are in very good shape at this point.

Bloomberg Won’t Run

I guess he probably realized that if people like me would have been willing to travel to New York City to sign the petition to get him on the ballot in person, that perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea after all. His candidacy would have:

Pulled more votes from the Democratic nominee than the Republican nominee.
Pulled money away from his gun control efforts to fund his campaign.
Put his gun control efforts front and center, and made it easier for our side to tie Everytown to Bloomberg.
Tied his other unpopular nannying to his gun control efforts.
Reveal the extent to which the entire gun control movement is funded by one rich billionaire.

The way I saw it, there just wasn’t any downside.

Why Are Anti-Gunners So Violent?

Former anti-gun Governor of New York, and Client Number NineÂ is now apparently being investigated for assaulting a woman. I’m a pretty firm believer in the projection theory for this. These are people who barely have any self-control, don’t really have their lives together, and pretty much assume everyone else must be the same sad, wretched mess they are. What’s worse is politics seems to attract these very types of people. You can find them on all sides, except on the right it tends to manifest itself as social conservative sex scandals.

Ouch, That Had to Hurt: McAuliffe Hits Bloomberg

It looks like there’s a developing war between Governor Terry McAuliffe and Mike Bloomberg’s Everytown. I’m going to grab some popcorn and enjoy this. Nice, well-salted and buttery popcorn, with a 32oz soda to wash it down. This is better than Godzilla vs. Mothra. It’s good to have things like this that can make blogging fun again.

Brian Coy spoke dismissively of Everytown for Gun Safety, which is associated with former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, as a â€œgroup from New Yorkâ€ that does not have the interests of Virginians at heart.

Ouch. That could just as easily come from a pro-gun Republican. In fact, I think that’s what we’ve been saying. Still, I can’t blame Bloomberg for spending a few million to buy McAuliffe’s ear only to get spit on. Not to be outdone, Bloomberg is going to run anti-McAuliffe ads.

It’s pretty well known that Terry McAuliffe has presidential ambitions, and I think his watching Hillary deflate despite the heavy emphasis on gun control might have convinced him that this current anti-gun fervor on the Dem side is a fad that’s going to die with Hillary’s campaign and Obama’s presidency.

GOA Sides With the Anti-Gunners

Opposition to the McAuliffe deal has been nearly universal on the anti-gun side. Even Bloomberg’s Everytown, which is generally willing to bend to reality much of the time is pretty angry about it. I don’t blame them. If I were in their shoes, I’d be pretty pissed off too if a big issue like reciprocity was traded for the trifle they got in return. It would be like if a Governor we backed agreed to an assault weapons ban in exchange for some extra money for public ranges and more wildlife conservation.

But the fact that the anti-gun groups are engaged in an effort to twist McAuliffe’s arm out of the deal doesn’t stop a group like Gun Owners of America from joining them. They are urging their members to call their representatives and senators to oppose the deal. We’re fortunate that it has passed the Senate, so I’m not certain GOA had too much of a negative effect.

Their logic for opposition relies on two items. The first is that the voluntary checks is just the first step toward making them mandatory. I’ve long said, legislatures can always pass gun control in the future, and we know they already want to ban private transferring of firearms. The key is whether the concession weakens your position and arguments. Hate to tell you all, but when we argued that NICS would be the bees knees, in leu of waiting periods, we already largely made that concession. State police at gun shows to do voluntary checks doesn’t really further weaken our position. The camel got his nose under this particular tent in 1994.

GOA’s other premise is that there’s no state analogue mens rea requirement of “knowingly” in the state mirror to the Domestic Violence Restraining Order prohibitions from the Lautenberg Amendment. Looking at the federal statute, 18 USC 922(g)(8), I’m not seeing where it says knowingly. The Virginia bill does in fact say “knowingly.” I’m pretty sure if you can show that the person knew they were subject of a DVRO, and knew they were in possession of a firearm, the mens rea requirement is fulfilled. I admit, I don’t really understand GOA’s argument here. Proving mens rea is always part of the state’s burden for a serious offense even if the statute does not explicitly say so.

So if this deal ends up tanked, and we lose all that reciprocity, you’ll be able to thank Larry Pratt right alongside Mike Bloomberg, Josh Horwtiz, and Ladd Everitt.

Now This is Some Spin

Hillary Clinton had Iowa locked up heading into game time. She was ahead of Bernie by twelve points just a few weeks ago. Take a look at RCPs track, and think about when Hillary turned up the gun control talk big time?Â Last year this time she was ahead by 52 points. Then Hillary started opening her mouth and talking, and as often happens when Hillary does that, she started blowing her lead. She had Gabby Giffords out in Iowa helping her campaignÂ at the last minute. She’s been pushing much more heavily on gun control in New Hampshire, where Bernie is creaming her. Hillary hasn’t been on top in New Hampshire polling since early December. When did those gun control ads start Hil?

Now with all that data screaming that gun control isn’t helping, and may actively be hurting Hillary, “The Trace,” Bloomberg’s media mouthpiece, is trying to argue that gun control saved Hillary. Go ahead and read that wonderfully delusional piece. Careful where you step though.

The threat of OSHA is already here

Sebastian wonders if a firearms-unfriendly OSHA could be used to attack firearms rights. But it’s not a crackdown on firearms-friendly employers that worries me so much as a crackdown on ranges for lead poisoning. Gun ranges are the cradle of gun culture, and we’ve already seen that our most dangerous enemies are attacking our ability to transfer that culture to new people (via “transfer restrictions.”) Most ranges are small-business (or equivalent) operations, which are hard to regulate easily, but easy to stifle by regulation. And the real hard truth is, yes, a lot of ranges are not doing enough to mitigate lead exposure because it’s hard and expensive. The Seattle Times article is a hit piece, but it’s an effective one. And the owners of the ranges highlighted for multiple severe violations are not doing themselves or the cause any good by not addressing the issues.

This is something NSSF and NRA ought to be educating the range owners about, a strong voluntary industry initiativeÂ before the smotheringÂ hand of government regulation and enforcement descends. (Which they may have started to do. I originally saw the Seattle Times article when Tam went to work at a gun store/range, when someone asked her if her employer was aware of an educational lead abatement program.) We’ve managed to instill the 4 Rules of Firearms Safety as a core value of Gun Culture 2.0; now we need to instill something similar for where to shoot, along with how to shoot. The problem is that a lot of range owner/operators predate Gun Culture 2.0, and it may not be possible to edit this part of the culture until they age out.

Of course, in the end this is another case of “enforce the existing laws.” According to the linked article, some of the highlighted ranges could have been taken down hard for knowing and continuing egregious violations, but they were cut slack and let slide. I have to wonder if nailing a couple of the really egregious examples “pour encourager les autres” would be beneficial in the long run.

I’d Welcome Bloomberg to the Circus

Over the weekend, the big news was Mike Bloomberg talking about throwing his hat into the ring in 2016, especially if Bernie Sanders is the nominee. Gun folks should want him to enter the race. It will help keep his profile up, and there will be a lot of talk about his backing of gun control. If you notice, Everytown has distanced themselves from Bloomberg. He’s kept a low profile. When people think gun control, we want them to think Mike Bloomberg, King of soda control, Baron of bland food. If he enters the race, he’ll be in the spotlight again, and there will be a lot of talk linking him to his unpopular nanny state views, including Everytown. People will be talking about these things, and he’ll more than likely pull votes away from the Democrats. He’d also likely blunt the effects of a Trump independent run, should such a thing happen. I think overall it would be quite beneficial to have him join the circus that is the 2016 election.

Run, Mike, Run

While I can’t say as I’d vote for the man, I heartily encourage Michael Bloomberg to run for president as an Independent.Â Especially if he’s going to self-fund. All of my political enemies should have an expensive and impossible hobby.