Category: Gun Rights Organizations

From today’s Shooting Wire:

Despite pleas from California’s firearms proponents, three anti-firearm bills squeaked in just before the end of the legislative session, were passed, and are now headed for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s desk. At this point, should he not veto them, ammunition registration (AB962), added retailer paperwork (SB 41) and the prohibitions on gun shows in the Cow Palace exhibition center (SB 585) will be signed into law, and gun owners will have lost three more battles.

The California Association of Firearm Retailers and the National Shooting Sports Foundation fought against these pieces of bad legislation. Another organization, the National Rifle Association, was conspicuously absent. Now, it’s up to residents and concerned citizens to persuade Schwarzenegger to veto them.

The best way to do that is to give him plenty of feedback- respectful feedback – asking that he veto AB 962, SB 41 and SB 585. You can call his office at (916) 455-2841, fax it at (916) 455-3160, or email him at: http://gov.ca./interact.

Emphasis mine.  Jeez Jim, are you getting your information from Larry Pratt these days?  I will admit that I do not follow California politics that closely, but just doing a bit of looking you have this, this, this, and this.  Not to mention Ed Worley, the NRA lobbyist for California has appeared on Cam’s show several times over the past few weeks to talk about what’s been going on in Sacramento.  Just because we lost doesn’t mean NRA isn’t there. California’s a tough state.  We don’t have much to work with, and we all know that.  I’m open to criticism of NRA’s strategy in California, but as with most criticism I see out there of NRA, this one isn’t based in reality.

NRA has endorsed Bob McDonnell for Virginia Governor, over Creigh Deeds.  Deeds hasn’t backed off the gun show loophole issue since the primary, so this is a reasonable choice. Deeds is far from being anti-gun, but I’m guessing the gun show loophole issue sealed it for NRA.  Plus, you have Bloomberg running commercial attacking Bob McDonnell, who told Bloomberg if he tried his little straw purchase stunt again, his “investigators” would be arrested and charged with felonies.

Florida politicians have been weighing in on some very serious issues lately. They had a budget to pass with severely depressed revenues, they have severe economic problems stemming from some of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation, and they had to debate on a new state bird. Oddly enough, NRA’s name is being dragged into this fight even though they aren’t actually taking a position on it at all.

Marion Hammer, NRA board member & Florida lobbyist, is leading the charge to keep the state bird as the mockingbird. Surveys were done, school children voted, and hearings were held to determine a good state bird to better represent Florida, but Marion Hammer likes mockingbirds. Due to the rather novel and odd debate over the issue, her NRA ties are being touted as NRA throwing around legislative muscle to bully school kids who voted for the osprey. Though she tries to clarify that she is not representing NRA in the matter, her connection to NRA as their primary lobbyist on the ground in Florida, as well as a regular spokeswoman for Florida legislative issues means there is little disconnect from NRA regardless of how much she tries to claim there is.

This is a tough situation for the staff in Fairfax, and one that staff and fellow board members must deal with in just about any non-profit organization. When leaders of the organization do have personal opinions, any effort to speak out will often be tied to the organization. Ideally, these leaders will weigh the benefits and risks to using an organization’s political capital to act on the matter. The risk is only appropriate if the perceived reward is worth it.

Take another example that made headlines earlier this summer. Sandy Froman organized a letter separate from NRA asking the Senate to vote against Sotomayor, and she testified while not representing the organization. She made it clear that she was not representing the official NRA position in her testimony, but that did not stop the reports from saying that she was the former president and a current board member. On an issue such as SCOTUS appointments, the risk of wasting political capital of NRA is exceptionally high. But the reward was that a full grilling of a nominee’s position of the Second Amendment is not only appropriate, but will likely be included in every future confirmation hearing.

The Second Amendment is now relevant in a way it never was before. Though Sotomayor essentially dodged the questions and gave terrible answers when she did say anything close to substantive, it was clear that there will never be room on the Court for a nominee who is not willing to agree that the Second Amendment is an individual right. That’s a pretty big payoff. It also forced NRA’s hand into deciding how much they would tolerate for a justice before deciding to grade a vote. The staff in Fairfax may not like that very much, but it’s a conversation that reasonable people can have as we find that the courts will help define our gun laws almost as much as the legislature.

Now, the question is whether the rewards of keeping the mockingbird as Florida’s state bird is worth the risk of using any of NRA’s political capital. For that, I would suggest it is not. Let the school kids have their way.

Over at PA Gun Rights, we take a look at the potential impact of Pittsburgh throwing away the NRA Annual Meeting in 2011:

For Pittsburgh, the decision to put politics above Second Amendment rights would be a huge pain for the local economy. The last time the Steel City hosted the organization’s annual meeting, they brought in $15 million to local coffers. The NRA was the first major convention to visit the city’s new convention center in 2004 and has remained one of the largest events Pittsburgh has ever hosted. Predictions for 2011 showed that gun owners would fill approximate 9,000 room nights and draw just as many visitors to the region as the record breaking 2004 event.

Seems like a lot of money for a cash strapped and job scarce city to be throwing away over something that doesn’t even make any sense.

The NRA Annual Meeting, which draws upwards of 70,000+ people every year, is scheduled to be in Pittsburgh in 2011.  Looks like NRA is threatning to pull the convention out of Pittsburgh if they continue with their threat to ban assault weapons.  As much as it would pain me, since I can easily drive to Pittsburgh, pulling the meeting is the right thing to do if Pittsburgh wants to continue demonstrating they have no respect for gun owners, or for state law.

The more I find out about the ordinance, the less I understand the need for it.  If a police officer orders you to disperse, and the order is lawful, it doesn’t matter what you’re in possession of.

I’m not seeing the sense in endorsing a candidate in either the Dem or GOP Senatorial primary at this point in the game.  But it seems FOAC is endorsing Bill Kortz, who’s a dark horse candidate running on the Dem ticket in the race that’s better known as the battle between Snarlen Arlen and Joe Sestak.  What’s also surprising is the language in the article would seem to indicate this is an overall endorsement, and not just a primary nod:

In its endorsement of Bill Kortz over all other declared candidates for U.S. Senate, Firearm Owners Against Crime, a non-partisan group of Pennsylvania citizens went on to declare, “We believe that a strong, independent and Constitutionally sound Government is essential for our society to flourish, especially in these trying times. It is our goal to assist in this process by helping to elect responsible leaders to elected office. F.O.A.C will be distributing our Voters Guide throughout Pennsylvania and your name is listed on this Guide as our endorsed candidate for the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race”.

I suspect what FOAC is thinking here is that any interest group is going to have more relative power to affect the vote in the primary rather than in the general election.  I don’t think it’s necessarily a mistake for a state level group to make an endorsement in a primary when the other candidates in the race are anti-gun.  But it’s still very early in the race — too early, I think, for an endorsement.  Let me explain my reasoning.

Any PAC or interest group that makes endorsements has to take care to protect and enhance the value, or at least the perceived value, of the endorsement.  The way you develop that value is to have a reputation for helping candidates win.  There’s a lot more too it than just “This guy is pro-gun, so I’m going to endorse him.”  If I were attempting to build a reputation for, say, a Snowflakes in Hell endorsement, I would stick to endorsing in close, better developed races, where I might be able to have some positive effects.  That both gives me a better chance of betting on the right horse, and a better idea of how much electoral power I have.  If you bet right more than wrong, even if you’re not the reason the candidate won, the perception will be there, and perceptions matter quite a bit in politics, arguably more than reality.

This is one reason NRA stays out of a lot or races, even when you have a pro-gun candidate running against an anti-gun incumbent.  Typical odds are 90% the incumbent is going to win.   Getting involved in a race which is going to beyond your organization’s power to influence — if you can’t drive enough votes and money to help the candidate win — you’re not doing your organization or the candidate any favor with the endorsement.  He’s still going to lose, and by association so will your organization.

Let me take a look at the numbers for a minute, just using this example here.  The last midterm primary, we had a total of 744,000 votes in a three way Democratic Senate race.  I believe this primary will probably pull roughly the same amount of votes.  I don’t know what FOAC’s break down between members who are registered Democrats and voters who are registered Republican, but I’ll be generous and assume it’s matches Pennsylvania’s overall voter breakdown, which means about 50% would be Democrats.  That’s about 30,000 of FOACs 60,000 members.  If you take the total number of likely Dem votes, and split it three ways, you come up with 248,000 votes needed to win.  If you assume you can drive an organizational discipline of 66%, and get 20,000 to actually follow your endorsement, you come out to about 8% of the total votes needed to win.  That is nothing to sneeze at, and a good reason for FOAC to be involved in primary politics if they have a lot of Dems in the organization.  But this is assuming the race is within the margin of FOAC’s influence.

The race currently isn’t close.  Latest polls show Snarlen at 47%, Sestak at 34%, and other at 3%.  Undecideds are at 16%.  Move all FOAC’s Dem members to Kortz, that brings him up to 7%.  A nice boost, but no cigar.  You can see what I’m saying when I argue the race hasn’t developed to the point where an endorsement is going to help a dark horse candidate all that much.  FOAC pretty clearly has some electoral muscle to exercise, but I’m not sure this primary is going to be a good demonstration.  If Kortz suddenly surged late in the game, and the numbers looked favorable for a FOAC endorsement to be able to push him over the top, go for it.  But until the odds look good, it’s not helping either the endorsor, or the endorsee to become involved.

I don’t see how Larry Pratt can sell himself as an expert on dealing with the Apocalypse if he doesn’t plan to talk about how to confront the eventual zombie menace.  I mean, the elephant in the living room isn’t it?  At least how to deal with zombies would be tangentially related to gun rights.  What good is saving your 401k or IRA from planned confiscation if something has eaten your brain?