The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
This time it would seem to be our opponents who seem to be compromising. I think they want to take one of our issues off the table, because it’s getting in the way of them passing draconian gun control. They want that to recapture the narrative.
Via Glenn,who notes NRA 1, Obama 0. Let’s keep things moving in that direction.
You know all those discounts we get as NRA members from hotels and rental cars? Apparently in the wake of Sandy Hook, those were attacked by the left. The Board is also not being considered off limits. These links are a bit old, but were ones I missed. I thought the left attacking NRA discounters was interesting enough to be worth a mention. They are attacking on all fronts. This isn’t any kind of probing action. These people mean to destroy us.
We were disappointed with how little this meeting had to do with keeping our children safe and how much it had to do with an agenda to attack the Second Amendment.  While claiming that no policy proposals would be “prejudged,†this Task Force spent most of its time on proposed restrictions on lawful firearms owners – honest, taxpaying, hardworking Americans.  It is unfortunate that this Administration continues to insist on pushing failed solutions to our nation’s most pressing problems.  We will not allow law-abiding gun owners to be blamed for the acts of criminals and madmen.  Instead, we will now take our commitment and meaningful contributions to members of congress of both parties who are interested in having an honest conversation about what works – and what does not.
What’s kind of laughable about it, is that I don’t think any of us seriously thought the Administration was interested in serious dialog. The “national conversation” was a farce from the beginning. This was planned “under the radar” to be executed the first pretext they had after the election. The only remaining option is to fight. Get writing your reps (and make them as sick of hearing form gun owners as I am of saying to badger them, and you probably are of hearing it).
The NRA reports to Politco that they have gained 100,000 new members in the last 18 days. This is not enough. They really need to hit 5 million members, and fast.
NRA has been at 4 million members since Heston was NRA’s front man. If we want to send a message that the culture really has changed, 5 million NRA members would send that. 10 million NRA members would send that even more.
I think this is probably correct, in response to Biden suggesting video games are on the table:
Of course, I’m wondering if getting the entertainment industry involved isn’t really about drumming up some friendly PR for whatever gun-control measures the White House does come up with more than anything else — rationale probably pretty similar to their reasoning for making these particular phone calls.
Yes. And Wayne LaPierre opened the door to this idea with the disastrous notion that gamers were a faction we needn’t worry about offending when School Shield was introduced. This is typical divide and conquer tactics that are so representative of the Chicago Way. Many people enjoy video games, and it’s quite possible I was not the only person who realized what a disastrous remark that was. The White House may have noticed too.
I’m sure folks are probably going to spin this as the sellout in progress, but Biden has been meeting with the gun control advocates for days now and having discussions. It’s helpful to see what they say. Same reason we listened in on what the Brady’s had to say. It can reveal their thinking, and reveal information that can be useful. You don’t go into battle blind, and political battle is no different.
A reader pointed me to some recent search trends on Google:
You can click for a closer look, but the red line is searches for “pmag” and the blue is searches for “NRA membership.” Let’s hope this continues.
Some gun rights groups are spending resources attacking NRA rather than attacking gun control. It’s times like these that we realize our worst enemy is ourselves. And note how they have pre-thrown Harry Reid under the bus before we even know what he’s going to do with Feinstein’s bill in the Senate. If I were Reid, there would be a lot of reasons I wouldn’t want it to see the light of day, and a big reason I wouldn’t is that I can read, and I still want to be majority leader in 2015.
I’m not in any way suggesting that now isn’t the time for constructive criticism, or talking what strategies work. But infighting is not going to be helpful. The fact is that when we’re dealing with untested candidates, all we have to go in is what they’ve promised, and one reason Casey, for instance, lost his endorsement and had his grade lowered (I’d note Santorum had it in the 2006 race, when Casey gained his seat) is because Casey already made some moves that indicated he might be a liar.
Paul Barrett delivers a dose of reality to gun control advocates:
If they are ever to regain political momentum on the national level, gun-control proponents will have to be more honest, and less hysterical, about their opposition. In America, for better or worse, guns are mainstream, and the NRA is not going away.
The article talks about how NRA actually does represent the viewpoint of a large number of Americans, backed up with polling data. I don’t agree with many of Barrett’s observations, which I think come from the point of view of someone who is not a political activist and likely doesn’t have much experience in grassroots politics, but he is correct in assessing the overall situation.
