Category: Anti-Gun Folks

The Humane Society of the United States, which endorsed Barack Obama this election, is calling for a nationwide ban on lead ammunition:

“If there was any doubt about the urgent need to rid our country of lead ammunition, here is proof positive,” said Andrew Page, senior director of the Wildlife Abuse Campaign for The HSUS.

This could be one way they come at us folks.  Get ready.  The CDC has already debunked the need for this, but HSUS is coming off a stunning electoral victory, and they will want to make the most of us.  Do you think Ray Schoenke is going to speak out against this?  Don’t hold your breath.  ASHA accomplished their goal — they got Obama and the Democrats elected.  For the next four years, fighting this stuff is going to fall on us.  Hunters need to wake up.

Thirdpower comments on Bryan Miller’s latest bit of crap on the increase in gun sales being a gun lobby plot.  I really love this bit from Bryan, personally:

You can see it, can’t you? The ‘boys with their toys’ using any excuse to do the old: “Hey, Honey, because (Obama was elected, a big snow is predicted, an old tree looks frail, any excuse for a new toy) I need to go down to the (gun shop, hardware store, etc.) and pick up a new (gun, snow blower, chain saw, whatever).”

In our household, we got his and her guns in honor of the impending Obama Presidency.

Thirdpower asks where Ray Schoenke’s been in Illinois, since the legislature and Gov. Blagojevich have slashed conservation funding.  Easy, he’s been busy trying to get the same Chicago political machine that passed this nonsense into the White House.

The Brady Campaign is already spinning this election as a victory for “sensible gun laws.” ‘Fraid not Brady Campaign.  Number one issue cited by Sportsmen this election was the economy.  Guns were not even an issue this election.  At all.  That didn’t help us.  In the end, Barack Obama’s tactic of running as far away from gun control as possible was a winning strategy for suppressing the gun vote.

Nice comments going on in this thread.

I still don’t understand the gun nut element. I have own a substantial number of firearms for my entire adult life and have never once worried that anyone was going to come to my front door and ask me to turn them in. What is this paranoia?

“If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them — Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in — I would have done it.” – Senator Diane Feinstein.  Maybe because you haven’t been paying attention for the past 20 years.

This is how fucktarded they’ve become. A guy who founded a gun company isn’t safe from the knuckledraggers. I just hope he got the world’s biggest platinum parachute.

But I thought golden parachute were horrible?  Oh yeah, only when it’s CEOs of big bad evil corporations.  I’m not up on the difference yet, I guess.

Fucking stupid. Republicans would cut off their noses to spit their faces. If he had endorsed McCain and Palin, nothing would have happened. But one utterance of support for a Democrat (especially Obama) and it is over for him.

There’s a reason for that.

AHSA is apparently blaming NRA for Cooper’s ouster.  First I heard anything from NRA on this one was Andrew’s comment in the USA Today article I linked to that mentioned me.  It continues to amaze me how much these groups think NRA is capable of.  Even if NRA were handing us marching orders, it would have to go through six different lawyers and layers of approval, to make sure no campaign finance laws were broken, and various other things, before it even got to us.  Those of us in the blogosphere saw this, and brought attention to it.  The rest was entirely grass roots:

Today, on behalf of the American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA), I condemned the actions by the NRA and its cronies forcing Dan Cooper out.

The gun lobby’s attempt to destroy a good man and small business owner, a loyal member of the gun fraternity, again reveals the desperate Joe McCarthy-like politics of fear that the NRA leadership and others put first.  They are trying to scare America’s hunters and shooters into voting against Barack Obama — but we have one thing to say: vote hope and not fear.

We’re not the “gun lobby.”  We’re people who care about the Second Amendment, and when it comes to Barack Obama’s record on that issue, we’re not spreading fear, we’re spreading the truth.  Who are you going to believe?  Those of us who actually hunt and shoot, or a guy who runs a supposed “Hunters and Shooters” group who has donated $5000 to Handgun Control Inc.

I should have figured this kind of thing would be something Bryan Miller would jump in to.  No tragedy too horrible that Bryan Miller won’t exploit to smear gun owners as a whole.  I don’t think it’s possible to have a reasonable discussion on guns with Bryan Miller.  He’s shown himself to be hysterical, and not interested in rational discussion.  Certainly not with those who understand what machine guns are, and what their inherent dangers are and aren’t.  He’d probably be shocked to find out that I agree that someone was dangerously irresponsible in creating the conditions that lead to this accident.  But he can’t have that discussion without bringing the rest of his vile baggage to the table.

UPDATE: I couldn’t resist a comment:

[…] Machine guns are not more inherently dangerous than any other firearm. With proper supervision and a bit of training on use, they are safe to shoot. The reason this accident happened, is because someone supervising had a tragic lapse in judgment. It would be like if pop had handed over the wheel to his high-powered speed boat, and the kid ran it into the pier. Would we condemn speed boating? No. Speed boaters? No. Would we argue that pop has some issues with judgment? Absolutely.

There are about 12 million registered recreational boats in the United States, which caused about 34 accidental deaths of children under the age of 13 in 2005.  There are 200 million guns in the United States, which cause 65 accidental deaths per year of children under 13.  Given there is more than an order of magnitude more firearms, this is a remarkable safety record.  For comparison, the number of cycling deaths in that age group is 94.   Source here.

This is why I get so pissy at anti-gun groups.  Via Murdoc:

In response to this tragedy, Freedom States Alliance (FSA), a national coalition of gun violence prevention groups along with the New England Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence (NECPGV), are calling for legislation to be passed immediately that would require that no child under the age of 18-years-old be allowed to use or operate any fully automatic machine gun, or semi-automatic assault weapon under any circumstances including at a “machine gun shoot,” shooting competition or firearm demonstration.

That’s absolute bullshit, especially since so-called assault weapons are common in competition shooting, and there’s absolutely nothing dangerous about junior shooters using them.  This tragedy was entirely a function of the firearm in question being a machine pistol.  But these groups are not beyond using a tragedy to try to get whatever they can while people are in hysterics.  Getting to outlaw junior service rifle competition is just icing on the cake to these folks.