Category: Anti-Gun Folks

You can’t be so desperate as an organization to raise your profile that you’re willing to go to lengths like this.  I’d say this is a new low for the Brady Campaign, but sadly it’s not.

The Georgia Restaurant Association is freaking out about the bill to get rid of many gun free zones in that state:

Ron Wolf, head of the Georgia Restaurant Association, said his biggest concern is the possibility of more violence.

The bill would allow guns only in restaurants that serve mostly food and bans patrons from consuming alcohol if they are carrying a gun. But Wolf said that is nearly impossible to enforce.

“Are waiters now going to have to ask everyone who orders a drink if they’re armed?” he asked. “Our position is simple. We think it’s inappropriate.”

The legislation also allows restaurants to ban guns, but they must post a sign outlining their policy. Those that do would risk alienating potential customers, said Ron Fennel, director of governmental affairs for the Georgia Hotel and Lodging Association.

“We think it’s worthy of a veto,” Fennel said of the proposal.

Cry me a river.  In Pennsylvania, we not only don’t have any kind of restaurant ban, it’s perfectly legal to have a beer with dinner while packing.  And guess what?  We don’t have problems with drunks roaming the streets shooting guns at people.  Who would have guessed, most LTCF holders are responsible, and aren’t the type of people who are going to risk losing their license by carrying while intoxicated.

Last week I mentioned a symposium being held at Duquesne University today from 3-5PM.  Here’s another story about some of the speakers who will be attending.  I’m looking for an intrepid reader who might have time and desire to be my eyes and ears at this, and either report back to me a reasonable summary, and notable quotes, or if you feel up to it, a guest entry.

Pennsylvania is being touted by the Brady Campaign as a model of the gun lobby’s ineffectiveness:

As for the next primary state, Pennsylvania, the state with supposedly the highest per capita NRA membership, gun control supporters regularly win there statewide: Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Al Gore (against strong NRA opposition) in 2000, and John Kerry in 2004.

Even more telling, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell – someone who just two years ago said, “I believe with all my heart that we need more gun control” – has won two gubernatorial elections against NRA-endorsed opponents, beating Mike Fisher in 2002 by nine points and Lynn Swann in 2006 by 20 points.

I would point out that Rendell was completely mum on the gun issue in his election and reelection campaigns.  It wasn’t until he had lame duck status that he started pushing the issue harder.  Fisher and Swann ran awful campaigns, against a well financed and smooth talking Ed Rendell.  Rendell is a talented politician, Fischer wasn’t, and Swann wasn’t even a politician.

But the point is valid.  Pennsylvanians are often Democrats before they are gun owners, and will pull the lever for an anti-gun politician if he has the right letter after his name in a national race.

But the Brady’s make the mistake of assuming that running on gun control is a vote winning issue.  It is a vote losing issue, because there is no passion for gun control in Pennsylvania, or anywhere else.  Not enough to make people pull the voting lever based on the issue.  Take a good look at the picture here.  Every single one of these folks showed up on their own, many taking a day off work to attend.  And this is with very little involvement of the NRA in the planning or promotion of this rally.  It was all state level groups who organized and promoted this.  There are many of us who will vote on the gun issue alone, when it comes election time.  The real reason groups like the Brady Campaign lack any real political power is because they have no grass roots.  Where are the anti-gun people linking to me to challenge my assumptions?  Where are the anti-gun commenters?  Why does the City of Philadelphia have to provide bus service and give days off work to get people to turn out to rallies favoring gun control?   The passion is on our side, not theirs, which is why we win and they lose.   They can try to spin it all they want, but that’s the reality.

I have to agree with Jeff Soyer on and Bitter this one.  It’s pretty tasteless to want to hold a gun control rally on campus on the anniversary of Virginia Tech, and kudos to the administration for throwing a flag on that play.

Of course, if it had been NRA wanting to hold a campus concealed carry rally, don’t you think the media would be all over it?

As it is always with great men, there are many who want to imagine that they would have supported this or that, or surmise what they may have thought of our modern situation.  The Brady Campaign are no exception on the anniversary of his assassination:

If Dr. King is looking down on us today, I can imagine him seeing 12,352 gun murders a year in the United States – nearly 34 every day – and telling us that “the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy leaves everyone blind.”

Somebody’s got to “have some sense” in America.

Maybe he would, and maybe he wouldn’t.  One thing we do know is that the 14th Amendment of the US constitution was passed partly to prevent southern states from passing and enforcing laws to disarm blacks, so that the Klan wouldn’t risk armed resistance when they terrorized them.

Let’s not also forget the Deacons for Defense:

In some cases, the Deacons had a relationship with other civil rights groups that advocated and practiced non-violence: the willingness of the Deacons to provide low-key armed guards facilitated the ability of groups such as the NAACP and CORE to stay, at least formally, within their own parameters of non-violence.^[2] Nonetheless, their willingness to respond to violence with violence, led to tension between the Deacons and the nonviolent civil rights workers whom they sought to protect.

Roy Innis has said of the Deacons that they “forced the Klan to re-evaluate their actions and often change their undergarments”, according to Ken Blackwell.^[3]

Let’s not forget Condi Rice’s support of the second amendment.  She has been quoted:

During the bombings of the summer of 1963, her father and other neighborhood men guarded the streets at night to keep white vigilantes at bay. Rice said her staunch defense of gun rights comes from those days. She has argued that if the guns her father and neighbors carried had been registered, they could have been confiscated by the authorities, leaving the black community defenseless.

Finally, it’s known that Dr. King also owned firearms, and even applied (and was denied) a gun permit in the days before his movement determined that a non-violence posture was the best tactic for the civil rights movement.

The untold story of the civil rights movement is that it involved a lot of blacks and civil rights workers protecting themselves with firearms.  The untold story of the gun control movement was that it originally started in order to disarm blacks.

The Brady Campaign does the civil rights movement injustice by wanting to imagine acceptance of their agenda in a speech where Dr. King was calling on followers not to seek violent retribution for wrongs done to them, not speaking against people defending themselves. Dr. King understood, correctly, that America could be persuaded to change by letting the segregationists be the provocateurs, the arsonists, the terrorists, and the assassins.  It was the smart tactic.  It was the correct tactic.

What Dr. King would think of gun control today, I don’t know, and neither does the Brady Campaign, but ignoring the racist and xenophobic history of gun control does society no service.  I do not believe the Brady Campaign pushes gun control because of any racist agenda; that motivation to pass gun laws is something that fortunately is now only in our past, but it ought not be ignored in the ongoing debate over our nation’s relationship with firearms.

The anti-gun forces in Pennsylvania vow to plod on, despite their resounding defeat in the legislature this Monday:

It was the latest loss in the last six months for Pennsylvania’s gun-control movement, but nevertheless its advocates insisted yesterday they had only just begun their fight.

“We have started to draw the gun-safety issue out of the shadows – which is where the special-interests lobby of the NRA wanted it to stay – and we are not going to stop now,” Joe Grace, executive director of CeaseFire PA, said yesterday. “We have a coalition that is growing, that is very energized.”

It’s been out of the shadows, Joe.  You got a vote on the floor of the Pennsylvania House.  All the media in Philadelphia, and in many other parts of the state covered this issue to death, and that coverage almost universally was in your favor.  You lost.  You don’t have the political power in this state to defeat the millions of hunters and shooters who live here.  And we’ll do everything we can to keep it that way.  John Hohenwarter has it right:

But John Hohenwarter, the NRA’s chief lobbyist in Pennsylvania, countered yesterday that “their problem isn’t organization. It’s their message. They don’t have a message that anyone is willing to buy here in Pennsylvania.”

Grace, of CeaseFire PA, disputed that, citing polls showing that the majority of residents support some form of gun control.

And, he said, his organization is rapidly expanding.

“Our goal is to build a coalition that is even broader and deeper,” he said, “so that it becomes a force to be reckoned with.”

Rapidly expanding?  I’ll be interested to verify that with CeaseFire PA’s form 990s when they come out.  How much you want to make a bet this rapid expansion is in Joe Grace’s imagination?

If any of my readers wish to attend a Symposium on Handgun Violence held at Duquesne University, near Pittsburgh, one is being held April 9th.  I’m looking for someone who might want to go and take notes, and report back to me here.  A guest blogging opportunity may be offered if you feel like doing a write up about it.

It would also be good to have pro-gun folks there to ask the anti-gun speakers tough and intelligent questions if there’s any Q&A follow up after they speak.

Thirdpower’s response to The Brady Campaigns bit over at HuffPo:

Obviously Paul’s been nominated for the board in Pleasantville.

Zing!  That deserves to be comeback of the week, I think.  For those of you who are 90s challenged, here’s what he’s talking about.