Category: Anti-Gun Folks

It’s been in media reports from around the country.  MAIG isn’t a gun control group.  They are only opposed to illegal guns. See the comments by Lancaster Mayor Rick Grey:

Gray, a Democrat running for a second term, spoke of a push by the National Rifle Association to pressure mayors to quit the Mayors Against Illegal Guns group. He said he would not be bowed by the NRA, and he affirmed the group’s efforts to curb illegal guns, while calling on his election opponent, former mayor Charlie Smithgall, to do the same.

Or Boyertown Mayor Marianne Deery:

Deery said the National Rifle Association has distributed postcards that read, “Your mayor, Marianne Deery, joined a national anti-gun group.”

“That can be no further from the truth,” the mayor said. “I am against illegal guns.”

“I will always stand up to fight for the second amendment of our Constitution,” Deery said. “I do believe that we have the right to own and bear arms.”

She said MAIG also supports the second amendment.

Let me show for you a graphic originally presented to me by our friend Carl in Chicago. It’s undisputed that the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violent is a group that advocates for more gun control and advocates for gun bans.  Let us take a look at MAIG’s positions versus the Brady Campaign positions:

Click on the links on the “x” for attribution of the organizations respective positions. There is no doubt folks, MAIG is a gun control group trying to hide behind the shield of only advocating getting rid of illegal guns. They just fail to mention to their prospective mayors that they favor making a lot more things illegal when it comes to guns. If you have a MAIG Mayor in your town, don’t let them get away with parroting this nonsense of only being against illegal guns. Make them own up for the gun control group they are a member of.

And also, really, why we call them anti-gunners.  What’s being proposed in Massachusetts is an outrage:

If adopted, the regulations would prohibit machine guns at all public sporting club events, and require clubs to obtain special licenses, hire a police detail, and have one certified firearms safety instructor for every 20 people in attendance (or one for every five attendees if children are present) at all public events. The regulations would also require clubs to submit a safety plan to their local police department 30 days before each event.

I’m an officer at our local club, and I can tell you that if we had to do this every time we had a match open to the public, we wouldn’t open our matches up to the public. Public events and matches are a big part of what shooting clubs do, and this would effectively make them too costly to conduct. Over time, it would essentially destroy the shooting culture, and make the existence of clubs relatively pointless.

What happened was indeed a tragedy, and the people responsible for it are already being prosecuted under the laws that already exist. But instead of just accepting that, Governor Patrick has chosen to propose regulations that would effectively shut down the shooting club culture in Massachusetts. Why? Because you can’t let any good crisis, or tragedy in this case, go to waste.

You can’t negotiate with someone who’s end goal is to destroy your way of life.

UPDATE: More from Virginia Shooting Sports Association, who adds:

The Globe reports that the Ayer Gun and Sportsmen’s Club hosts an annual Military Demonstration Day featuring World War II machine guns. It may cease to exist, according to the club’s assistant range officer, Dan Damato. This event is held to honor veterans. Only one person is allowed to shoot the machine gun, while everyone else stands behind, Damato told the Globe. If Patrick’s machine gun ban takes effect the tradition will end.

Yes, the tradition will end, which is exactly the point.

Mike Bloomberg is coming out swinging against the checked firearms rule on Amtrak, a rule that not even the Brady Campaign opposes. It would appear that Mayor Bloomberg is setting himself up to be the most extreme anti-gun leader in the gun control movement.

For those who live in cities represented by a Mayor Against Guns, this is a great argument to use in order to convince them to leave Bloomberg’s group. Even if the mayor does support some gun control, there’s a very good chance that they would not want to run to the left of the major gun control advocacy group. Between Bloomberg’s radical positions and his refusal to seek permission before signing mayors up for MAIG or putting their names on letters to Congress and in advertisements, there exists a huge political liability.

Paul Helmke says:

We also discussed the nature of the Second Amendment after the Heller decision and how most gun violence prevention laws appear likely to withstand scrutiny under Justice Scalia’s majority opinion. One of the big stories in Tennessee, by the way, is also the move by approximately 70 cities and towns to opt out of Tennessee legislation forcing guns into parks.

My travels this summer affirmed my belief that the debate over gun violence prevention is moving toward the middle ground and away from the extremes since last summer’s Supreme Court decision. There are a number of things we can do to make it harder for dangerous people to get guns while respecting the Second Amendment.

Paul has some amazing turd polishing skills, I have to give him that.  But the message I got from Alan Gura was his confidence we’ll get a pretty good Second Amendment out of all of this.  One the Brady Campaign certainly won’t be happy with.

I guess with the press a lot less willing, or perhaps able, to do the heavy lifting for the gun control movement they’ve chosen to do it themselves.   Personally, I’m upset this guy doesn’t have a conviction for annoying use of frames in a web site.  OK, that’s not a crime, but it should be.

Is this the kind of guy I want carrying a loaded pistol around in public?  No.  But the Bradys like to paint guys like this as a rule rather than an exception.  You can find police officers with these kinds of problems too, even in New York City.  I agree with Doug Pennington that human beings are fallible.  But Doug and the Bradys like to think that there is a class of people who are immune from these human failings — a class of people who is worthy to have the means to protect themselves, while the rest of us are simply unable.  I suppose that’s really the philosophical difference between us.  I tend to think most people can deal with serious responsibilities, and those that can ought not be punished because a minority of people can’t.

UPDATE: To actually read the Brady Investigative Journalism bit, you have to click on the little blue arrow with the red circle around it to make it appear.  Who thought this was a good idea?

There’s a mayor in Freedom, New Mexico that seems surprised, maybe even a little indignant, that NRA is saying he’s a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.  But in an article today by the Portales News-Tribune, Rachel Parsons from NRA says something pretty interesting:

Parsons, who works at the NRA headquarters in Fairfax, Va., said several other mayors across the country also have told her organization that they attended an MAIG event and were put on the membership roster although they never signed up to join.

So it would seem that Bloomberg’s group is signing mayors up for the political equivalent of saying “hi,” and then signing their names to statements promoting gun control.  That’s going to turn into a liability for MAIG quickly if word gets out.