Category: Gun Rights Organizations

I know I mentioned before I’d reserve judgment on Appleseed until I had actually been one.  After reading chatter over on their forum, I am reconsidering that.  I do not wish to paint all Appleseed participants and instructors with this same brush.  I’m sure many of them, like this gentlemen, are fine instructors, who really do want to help bring more people into the shooting culture.  I do not question the basic premise of Appleseed.   But I do question things like this:

These people sound like yuppies just chatting, nothing about them says anything to me about them having any credentials for having a radio talk show other than they just happen to have one. And where is their work on any kind of 2A program? Geeze, I have never seen more “If it didn’t originate here, it is no good” than these guys on blogs/talks.

And how about this one from a forum administrator:

Well well well.

Haven’t even been to one and are dissing it?  How Jr. High.

Typical of amerika today, where everything is a 15 second soundbite and too many folks think that fame can be found sitting in their underwear in front of a computer screen in their mama’s basement.  Not hearnig the “show”, I shall reserve full judgement until later.

For now though, I hope that they get to an Appleseed soon, ID themselves (although we should know them by the pastey white skin and the fact that they are still wearing just underwear!  LOL!), and give it an honest try for a weekend our way.  One would think that since they are conservative they would want to do a good job of reporting by getting the whole story instead of making it up like what happens on T.V.

Or they can continue being jut like all the other empty heads out there spouting off oppinoins as fact and losing crediblity among all but those whom also sit in their underwear in their mama’s basement.

And quite frankly, they can have them folks.

Will listen tonight.

Or this one:

Breda was the only one that was not “high”, and it showed.  It is a tough deal to have a first timer, with the fire hose just removed, to do justice to the program.  It does give us some perspective on how better to prepare folks to speak about Appleseed.   I think if I can find a “supplier”, I may get high and see if I understand what they were saying.

Now, Chris Byrne, who has actually been to an Appleseed, and knows his shit, I think presented a fair and balanced view of the program.  What I’m seeing is a lot of people who are unable to accept valid criticism and input, and that sets off alarm bells.  These aren’t the people I want representing the gun culture.  I have one basic litmus test for determining whether a person or organization is the kind of person I want to work with or not: Are you looking for allies, or are you looking for heretics?  When I get a whiff of the latter, alarm bells go off, and my skepticism get raised.  In grass roots movements, you’re always going to have some people trying to root out heretics, but how the organization deals with those types of folks says a lot about it.  Is Appleseed willing to deal with those who can’t deal with criticism?  Are they willing to weed through their own garden?  These are the major questions I have.

Some of you might remember the post I did last week asking some questions about endorsements in the Altmire/Hart race in Pennsylvania’s fourth congressional district.  I received a response from Kim Stolfer, who heads up FOAC.  Kim has given me the green light to publish his response, which  will do so in its entirety.  It’s rather long, so I’ll put it beneath a “more” link below.  I encourage everyone to read.

Continue reading “More on Endorsements”

Just in case you haven’t seen it on the numerous other gun blogs that have linked it, NRA-PVF has a web site up dedicated to setting the record straight on Barack Obama.

Mother Jones is now implying that Sean McFate, the son of Mary McFate, was let go from a D.C. think tank because of his mother’s actions.  The Think Tank says he moved on prior to the incident.

Apparently Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) is inserting himself into the Mary McFate controversy.

Although the NRA and I certainly have had our disagreements over the years, I hope that we can agree that the gun violence prevention debate should be based upon an open and honest exchange of ideas, not on underhanded tactics.

I question whether the Senator really understands what he’s asking for here.  There’s been very little that’s honest about gun control organizations, which is why they don’t want to have an “open an honest” conversation about the matter.  Otherwise how can they take bloggers out of context, mislead the public about the nature of firearms, firearms owners, the NRA, and the second amendment. Would you like to have an open and honest discussion in public about the nature of the “Terrorist Watch List” that you want use to deny Americans fundamental rights?

We’re completely willing to have an open and honest exchange of ideas, Senator.  Are you sure your allies in the gun control movement are willing to do that?

This person pretty clearly doesn’t want to recognize that Melissa Hart herself was the beneficiary of NRA’s endorsement policy when she lost to Jason Altmire:

How can the National Rifle Association say with a straight face that it is looking out for the interests of gun owners if it backs a candidate who is also endorsed by MoveOn.org (“NRA endorses Altmire in race against Hart,” July 25 and PghTrib.com)?

NRA doesn’t care how liberal you are, the only question is how you are on gun issues.  Hell, even John Murtha gets an endorsement because he’s still solid on second amendment rights.  Altmire’s record on the Second Amendment has been good, and he deserves the endorsement.

The entire mole affair was the subject of much discussion between Bitter and myself. The Bradys are predictably acting like jilted lovers, which is only understandable.  Bitter predicted they would.  I thought they’d keep quiet about it, since who wants to admit, in a public place, that you’ve been suckered.  Bitter also thinks the information gleaned from this woman was probably worth whatever public relations price is going to be paid over the incident.  Information about legislative strategy, for instance, can tell NRA where they need to spend money, and where they don’t, and what fights they might need to conserve resources for.

I remain uncomfortable with what happened here.  I couldn’t do such a thing myself.  But Bitter and I agree on one, key item.  The Brady Campaign is dedicated to the elimination of one of the original ten amendments that comprise the Bill of Rights.  In essence, they are a group out to undermine the Constitution of the United States, which is the very basis of our Republic.  To accomplish that, they’ve willingly mislead the public about the nature of guns, and of gun owners, and willingly distorted and misrepresented facts and statistics.  They have done the media equivalent of tar and feather us.  Given that, is there really any tactic that’s too sleazy and too underhanded to use in order to defeat them?

Bitter leaves the snark behind this time and talks about why folks should care that NRA’s Camp Perry Live blog has been a disappointment.  This started in a conversation where I said that people just didn’t care about this type of stuff.  She decided to explain why people should.