Anti-Gun Folks – Page 26 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Brady Victim Exploitation Reaching New Lows

Several weeks ago, John Richardson reported that Brady had lost their lawsuit against Lucky Gunner and Sportsman’s GuideÂ for selling ammunition to the Aurora mass murderer, and were ordered to pay legal fees for the defendants. Apparently those fees amounted to some $280,000 dollars.Â Dave Hardy notes that the PLCAA doesn’t seem to specifically call for attorneys fees to be paidÂ , “I wonder if the judge might have awarded the fees as sanctions for bringing an utterly frivolous suit. That’s a rare action for a court to take, the suit has to be utterly beyond the pale, and in awarding them the judge could assess them directly against the attorneys.”

Dave notes that the judgement is a significant part of Bradys’ income and assets. Are we witnessing the dying gasp of the Brady Center? Let’s hope so. Preying on the families of victims to raise their profile by filing frivolous lawsuits is beyond the pale. Recall they recently withdrew from another suitÂ for ethical lapses. Depending on how the judgement is structured, it might be possible for Brady to leave the victims holding the bag; on the hook for the 280 grand. If they do scurry off and leave the judgement to the family, it’s beyond the pale to exploit victims like that.

I think it’s time for the Brady Center to quietly disband. Even looking at the situation from the perspective of a person who supports gun control, the Brady organization no longer serve any useful purpose. How the mighty have fallen.

Bloomberg’s Favorite, AG Kathleen Kane, Keeps Finding Legal Trouble

It seems that Mike Bloomberg’s gun control cash can’t buy PA Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s way out of more legal drama.

Kane is being sued by a former agent from her office because he says she fabricated a story about him, claiming that he says his sting was only targeting black people. He claims that he never said that, and he says it seriously harmed his reputation as an investigator. He even took a polygraph test that he says he passed.

In fact, the story highlights that Kane claims she had a sworn statement by the agent’s boss that the agent suing her did say it. The problem is that there was no sworn statement. There was an unsworn statement (aka no legal accountability if they prove the boss lied) written more than a year after the supposed racial comment. To top that off, it was only written after Kane made her public claim. In other words, Kane made the claim that the agent with 20 years on the job made a statement. Then, four days after she issued the public attack, the agent’s boss magically writes up a statement fitting the narrative Kane told the media.

This woman is not just incompetent, she belongs in jail. It seems a grand jury agrees with me on the issue of criminal charges in another matter. Even the outlets that endorsed her think it’s time for her to get out of the office. Of course, I’m surprised she hasn’t put a fat target on the media since she already hinted she would sue them for reporting on her many ethical problems.

Remember folks, this woman won partly due to the huge financial investment made by Mike Bloomberg specifically because her views on gun control. She has repeatedly screwed with our reciprocity agreements, and she started lobbying against federal pro-gun bills before she even took office. But, hey, all those voters in the traditionally Republican parts of Pennsylvania felt like a vote for her was a vote for Penn State. No, it was a vote for corruption and abuse that not even the Philadelphia media can tolerate.

Brady Attorneys Withdraw From Lawsuit Over Ethics Issues

According to NRA, Brady Center Attorneys Jon Lawy and Alla Leftkowitz got in hot water for posting inadmissible evidence on the Brady website, which is a violation of Wisconsin ethics rules:

Milwaukee County Judge Jeffrey Conen may have given Lowy and Lefkowitz the benefit of the doubt when he said, â€œI don’t how things are practiced in Washington, D.C., or New York or anywhere else, but out here in the Midwest we have certain rules.â€Â Judge Conenâ€™s reference to Washington, D.C. and New York was likely due to those being the jurisdictions of Lowyâ€™s and Lefkowitzâ€™s bar membership, respectively.

NRA also notes, “all attorneys are charged with understanding ethical rules in the jurisdiction in which theyâ€™re licensed,” and note that both New York and D.C. have substantially similar rules.

This is more evidence that the Brady Campaign and Brady Center are becoming the Junior Varsity of the gun control movement. They lack Bloomberg’s deep pockets and strategic acumen, and lack CSGV’s willingness to troll the depths of the Internet in search of mouth foaming supporters. This leaves Brady without a real niche. PLCAA pretty much prevents the Brady Center from doing anything useful, so they are stuck pretending to their supporters that they are making a difference.

Sexism in (Attacking) the Hunting Culture

It’s a few days old, but I just came across this piece in the WaPo talking about why it is anti-hunting advocates put targets on attractive female hunters.

The article notes that celebrities and anti-hunting advocates don’t attack or issue threats against male hunters at nearly the same rate as they target women or frequently even with the vitriol that they reserve for women.

Ultimately, it comes down to sexism in their movement. Women and guns, oh my! The article quotes a Vanderbilt professor, Kelly Oliver, who said:

â€œWe expect men to be hunters, but weâ€™re surprised when girls are hunting … Whatever we think about hunting the â€˜Big Fiveâ€™ in Africa, itâ€™s clear that we still have issues with women and girls carrying guns and using them.â€

Ah, gotta love sexism on the part of the animal rights activists that forces women into a box of pre-selected labels and hobbies just because of their sexual organs. Oh, wait, isn’t that what they often accuse us of doing?

The article does cite another professor who claims it isn’t sexism that motivates these attacks, but they are rooted in other judgements against the women hunters – their race, their socioeconomic status, and even their nationality. However, the second professor doesn’t appear to answer the challenge of why these attacks target female hunters when men share the same types of photos without nearly the level of antagonism. That’s still gender bias at work, even if the people issuing Twitter threats may also have an issue with a hunter’s race or class.

Shannon Watts’ Epic Fail

On Saturday, we reported on Moms Demand Action’s flop of a protest. Watts had claimed there would be 400 in attendance, and by our count there were at best 150 people. The Guardian incredulously claims Â there were 500 protesters in attendance, even though no one else would claim that. Bob Owens’ shot from the bridge shows better than anyone else’s that number is an ouright fabrication. Miguel explains theÂ heaping helping of trick photographyÂ Moms Demand uses to bolster their bogus claims. But nontheless, the real measure of success or failure is how successful Shannon Watts was at bringing forth the media to write stories.

Certainly we saw a lot of reporters there at the protest, and cameras abound, but as of this morning this is all that appeared on Google News:

The first story is from Breitbart News, and the second Bob Owen’s article. I could fine one other casual mention of the protesting moms on ABC News, but other than the Guardian piece linked above, as best as I can tell it’s crickets. I spoke with someone who said they had been watching the news broadcasts to see if there was any coverage, and there wasn’t.

So without oxygen from media outlets, it’s pretty apparent that Mike Bloomberg would have done better to pile up all the money spent on planning, busses, hotels, Â t-shirts, signs, and box lunches, and burned it. Shannon Watts protest at NRAAM this year was an epic failure.

Hat Tip to Gail Pepin for the best photo of Shannon Watts ever which appears as the “featured image” of this post.

Moms Demand (Not Much) Action

With Shannon Watts speaking about drawing 400 protestors out to Riverfront Park, we decided to take a walk down there to see whether she was living up to expectations. More importantly, given that last year at Indianapolis, Watts hired armed security, we were wondering whether she’d be dumb enough to bring armed security into parks while simultaneously lobbying against bringing guns into parks in Tennessee. She did have armed security, but they were police officers. Probably hired police officers, since I doubt you’d get that many without paying them. Must be nice to have Bloomberg’s money. I’d estimate about 150 people, which we know were bussed in.

We walked around almost as if we were tourists, and the women shouted out offers of free t-shirts to us just for walking around. The police officers, on the other hand, were trying to make sure they stayed away from the camera while keeping an eye out for the group. We overheard one officer telling the other he didn’t want to be in any camera shots since he didn’t want to really been seen with their cause. Instead, they started talking about gun shows on tv.

As Texas Gun Bills Advance, Media Plays Race Card

An open carry and campus carry bills are moving along in the Texas legislature. So desperate are our opponents to stop this bill, they’re dragging out probably the most effective argument you can use to make GOP politicians think twice about voting for something: imply if they do so, they might look racist. And really, are the numbers they present that bad?

Half of hispanics support the concealed carry law in Texas? That seems roughly on par with other polls I’ve seen, not broken down along racial lines. Only 45% of blacks oppose carry, with 33% supporting? I don’t think this paints the picture of such a disaster for the GOP as opponents of these bills are trying to make it out to be.

Sarah Brady Dies

Apparently of Pneumonia, at age 73. The end of an era in gun control. My thoughts are prayers go out to her family. I don’t believe we should be horrible people about something like this.

In contrast to Bloomberg, who is relatively easy to vilify, and practically a self-parody of a nanny stater,Â Sarah Brady was far more than a checkbook.Â The Bradys were a Washington power couple, and they were powerful advocates for gun control when they took up that cause. I’d take Bloomberg as the Second Amendment’s arch nemesis any day of the week over Sarah Brady.

Hat Tip to Miguel, who is also promoting tastefulness.

Calls for Bloomberg-Bought Kathleen Kane to Resign

Not even Bloomberg’s riches could cushion Kathleen Kane’s fall from grace. The Philadelphia Inquirer has a scathing call for her to resign.

They highlight that it has recently come out that she personally intervened to revoke subpoenas for men with apparent ties to the mob, and then got a $25k political donation out of it. She did eventually decide that maybe she should return it, but it’s clear they assumed she should be “rewarded” for her effort derailing the corruption investigation.

As a close Clinton ally, I’m sure that we’ll soon hear the claim that this is all part of War on Women and that it’s clearly only because she’s attractive. There’s just no way that anyone could think she’s incompetent based on the fact that she’s looking at potential criminal charges for her actions in office and is now tied to two cases of stepping in to derail corruption investigations into political allies. Clearly, it’s just because she’s a woman. /sarcasm

Harrisburg Spending $20K it Doesn’t Have on Lost Cause

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania doesn’t have two pennies to rub together, yet they have enough money to spend $20,000 of taxpayer coin on what are only the very beginnings of what could end up being a very expensive lawsuit. Even if the city racks up 100,000 in legal bills, they might end up being on the hook for twice that when they get slapped with the other side’s legal bills too.

And for what? These ordinances cannot be enforced, because they are illegal, and have been since preemption was passed in 1974. Even if Act 192 is found to be unconstitutional, that doesn’t change the legal status and unenforcability of their ordinances. So congratulations Harrisburg taxpayers, I suppose it should be no shock that a city who lacks the financial discipline to avoid ended up in front of a bankruptcy court would waste so much taxpayer money in what amounts, essentially, to a feel-good, symbolic act.