Category: Anti-Gun Folks

After Joyce cut off funding.  There’s no real reason for Iowa to be may issue, but they have the same problem Delaware does, in that if you live in most of the state, even Polk County, which contains Des Moines, you can get a license to carry if you jump through the hoops.  There are only a few counties in Iowa that don’t routinely issue, like Johnson County, which contains Iowa City, and Linn County, which contains Cedar Rapids.

But I dont’ get the impression we have much of a ground game going on in Iowa either.  It’s one of those weird states for the issue.  I think, in large part, Iowans tend to be hunters, rather than shooters, or people who are looking to have a gun for self-defense.

UPDATE: Looks like Linn County issues.    Strangely enough, you can get a license in Des Moines, but if you live in Des Moines County you’re screwed.  Des Moines County is over by Illinois.

I think the Brady Campaign is drawing a rather bizzare conclusion from the latest Rasumussen poll.  Must be the Montezuma getting to them.

Robb Allen says that the anti-gun folks are a lot like flat earthers.

Bryan Miller’s press release on the One-Gun-a-Month Victory in Trenton.  I’m sure he’d like to have put that on CeaseFireNJ’s old domain, but it was taken over by pro-gun forces when he allowed the domain to expire.

“It came down to the Senate understanding its duty to mediate between the personal privilege of a tiny minority of NJ handgun extremists and the common good – public safety. Happily, it decided for the latter,” said Jardim. “We anticipate the Governor will sign this critical bill post haste.”

There’s that phrase again.  I guess Jardim has been getting rhetoric lessons from Miller.  I thought the Supreme Court was pretty clear it was an indivudal right, rather than a “personal privledge.”

You win this round, for now.

Maybe it fits with the portrait The Brady Campaign tries to paint of the NRA as a grand puppeteer, in some kind of odd Second Amendment version of Being John Malkovich, but from what I’ve seen of the 7½th floor, it’s kind of laughable that they think NRA exerts such remarkable discipline over 76 Board members:

Up to now, the NRA has instead taken a more timid official line against Judge Sotomayor, while apparently outsourcing a much harsher line of attack to members of its Board of Directors who speak on behalf of other organizations which have comparatively little to do with guns.

Emphasis mine.  I doubt this has much to do with a stealthy, plasuably deniable attack so much as Board members speaking out on their own on behalf of their other interests.

We’ll see during Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings how much stock, if any, NRA officials take in their legendary influence over Congress — this time, whether they have the spine to score Senators on a vote that really matters.

I think the Bradys are attempting to draw the NRA into a fight it’s likely going to have a hard time winning, in order to try to sell Congress on the notion that NRA’s bark is worse than its bite.

Josh Sugarmann is touting the canard that the firearms industry is unregulated.  We know for a fact just how much bunk that is.  The fact is that firearms are regulated much the same way as other consumer products, like automobiles.  In that there are regulatory parameters that manufacturers have to comply with, but within those parameters there’s the ability to make products that consumers want.

If you read carefully what Sugarmann is really saying, he’s lamenting that guns are largely legal, within the framework established by federal and sometimes state regulation.  Presumably he’d want a framework more akin to how the FDA regulates drugs, with agency approval being required before sale to consumers, and with the regulating agency having a very large degree of control over how products are marketed.

Very few consumer products are regulated in this manner.  In fact, I can think of only drugs, which aren’t really a consumer product since they require a prescription from a doctor, as the only products regulated according to Sugarmann’s proposed regime.  Even the famous teddy bear example, that anti-gun groups always throw at us, are regulated in the same manner as firearms, in that manufacturers act within an established regulatory framework that only defines what you may not do, rather than requiring prior permission from the regulating agency to do anything.

But why lie and say guns are unregulated?  That’s far from the truth.  If you want an FDA like regulatory framework for guns, why not start with that discussion?  Make the case for it.  Again, the anti-gun folks aren’t talking to real people here.  They are talking to a media that’s too busy trying to escape its own death spiral to pay much attention.  The days of success through lying to the public is over.  The real problem for the anti-gun folks, and why they have adopted these tactics to begin with, is that there’s no political support what Sugarmann proposes.

The Brady Campaign still wants to paint an image of the NRA being the big bad puppet master of the vast right wing conspiracy, based on this passage from a New York Times article they found to be particularly compelling:

As if the wackos weren’t dangerous enough to begin with, the fuel to further inflame them is available in the over-the-top rhetoric of the National Rifle Association, which has relentlessly pounded the bogus theme that Barack Obama is planning to take away people’s guns.

What kills me is that I know the Brady Campaign reads our blogs.  If they pay any attention at all they should understand the dynamic enough to know that the whackos won’t have much of anything to do with the NRA, becasue NRA isn’t extreme enough for them.  But I suppose we have to have a monster, don’t we.  A good scary bedtime story to get people to donate more money.  It’s OK.  Everyone in this issue is guilty of it.  But like I said before, they’ve shown a real inability to talk to real people, and that is what’s dooming their cause, and will continue to do so in the long term.

Having a bogeyman is important, but having a real argument is more important.  I know I’m not the only gun blogger who’s thought he could make the Brady case better than they do.

There some interesting correlations going on there.  Go take a look.

Thirdpower notices that Ray Schoenke of the the false flag American Hunters and Shooters Association comes out of hiding to defend President Obama against the big, mean, NRA. Notice there’s no talk about what AHSA is doing to preserve our rights.  No talk about what shooting programs they are planning to run.

AHSA is a false flag operation meant to give anti-gun Democratic politicians cover on the gun issue.  I might give Ray a better grade for recent efforts to reform the organization’s image, if, for instance, he could explain what he’s doing in regards to Claire McCaskill’s “no” vote on the Coburn Amendment in regards to National Park Carry.  I mean, they endorsed her, and all.  That’s right, I totally forgot.  They are against “self-defense whakos.”

The firm that lost Heller for the Bradys has accepted a place on their Honor Role. I have to admit, it’s a little amusing, but when a law firm donates a lot of pro-bono time to your cause, you kind of have to say thank you, even if they lose.  They are being recognized at a ceremony taking place today with Dick Durbin, Carolyn McCarthy and other members of the Sad Panda Coalition.