Category: Gun Rights Organizations

Tom King relays something said to him by a police officer in Pittsburgh during the 2004 Annual Meeting:

No, thank you and all the NRA members who came to our city. this was the largest, most peaceful, the cleanest family oriented and financially successful convention held in this city. There have been no fights, no litter, no drunkenness and the restaurants/stores are all saying you guys spend money. This city needs that! The sad part is that our Police Chief had all our SWAT Teams on alert because he predicted it would be like ‘old Dodge City’ with you drunken gun owners shooting up the city. On behalf of my brother officers and the city of Pittsburgh thank you and please come back; you guys are the best.

That would probably make Jadegold, and other like him, cry.  Read the whole thing.  Of course, a bunch of rowdy gun bloggers will be descending on the Annual Meeting this year, so you never know what’s going to happen!

The gun rights movement also has more members.  So many, if 15% of our membership were to come to the annual meeting, there’s no city that’s large enough to hold us all.  Not even Las Vegas.

Bitter is not happy about the NRA alert she got tonight. I saw it too and thought it was a bit hyperbolous. Either way, it’s not quite as important as the advances we just made with National Park carry, and the fact that there would be lawsuits on the Florida parking lot bill is predictable.

Bitter reminds us that NRA ballots have to go out now for board elections, and she squeezes in a last minute message to vote for Bob Viden of New Jersey.

Bitter describes the various types of non-profits, which is relevant in understanding exactly how NRA (and our opponents, for that matter) are put together.

Can be found here. [UPDATE 7/22/2010: Not anymore. The Las Vegas Review-Journal, sewer rats that they are, receive no links from this blog]  Hat tip to War on Guns for pointing it out.  I don’t really agree with Suprynowicz, in the sense that I think Gura did what he thought he had to do to win the case, but I don’t find this article particularly inflamatory.  What set me off on GOA was the implication that the people involved in this case were not on “our side.”  I think there’s a difference between offering criticism and using language that tends to undermine or downplay the contributions of others.

This case won’t be the end of second amendment litigation by far, just the beginning.  Will we rescue machine gun rights from this?  I’m doubtful, there’s a lot of damage to be undone in that area, but we’ll have to wait and see what’s in the opinion, and where we can go from here.  We will need groups that will make machine guns an issue, because it’s not going to be NRA carrying that torch.  But we need these other groups to carry a message of “We’re standing up for machine gun owners.”  Not a message of “We’re standing up for machine gun owners, and all these other people to our ‘shock and horror’, who are on ‘our side’ are undermining us.” This can’t become “If you don’t agree with me on everything we’re enemies.”   That’s a great way to lose.

GOA once again fans of the flame of anger and resentment by trying to trash people who actually pick up the ball and try to move if forward:

More to the point, Justice John Paul Stevens asked Alan Gura, the attorney for Dick Heller, if it would be proper to say that the right protected in the Second Amendment shall not be “unreasonably infringed”?

To our shock and horror, Gura answered “yes.” He did qualify his answer somewhat by saying “we don’t know” exactly what this “unreasonable standard looks like.” But he conceded a significant amount of ground with his answer, because any ban would be “reasonable” to Chuck Schumer and Sarah Brady.

Truth be told, we do have a proper standard for interpreting the Second Amendment. The language doesn’t say anything about “reasonable” or “unreasonable;” it simply says the right of the people “shall not be infringed.” It’s a shame that even people on “our side” don’t fully understand that.

Larry Pratt is no doubt a legal expert and knows better than the parties involved in this case, many of whom were experienced supreme court litigators, how to handle oral arguments before The Court.  And is GOA suggesting with “our side” schtick in quotes that the people who worked long and hard on this case, many of whom have been laying the groundwork for this all their academic and legal careers are not on it?

As I said yesterday in a comment over at Dave Hardy’s site, where Dave mentioned Gura was getting messages all that evening from angry folks:

I want to be the first to welcome Mr. Gura to the wonderful world of pro-gun activism, where if he had the entire team of petitioners dangling over a shark tank with a copy of the National Firearms Act sticking out of their back pockets, there would still be yahoos screaming that the sharks don’t look hungry enough.

Guys like Dave Hardy, Dave Kopel, Clayton, Joe Olsen, Alan Gura, Bob Levy, Bob Cottrol — the names of people who have worked on this case could go on and on — they are on our side.  I don’t question that.  I do question whether Larry Pratt and the GOA are interested in really anything other than feathering their own nests at the expense of the entire movement.  Alan Gura in all liklihood just won a case that gives us a second amendment that actually means something, but he’s not on our side?  GOA can go to hell.

Tonight I was happy to have the opportunity to take members of Academics for the Second Amendment, Joe Olsen, Dave Hardy, Clayton Cramer and his wife, out for some dinner.  It’s money well spent as far as I’m concerned, since if we prevail in Heller, it will be in no small parts through their efforts.  I do wish them luck in getting in to see the oral arguments.

Be sure to visit their blog, read their brief, and send some dollars their way yourself.   You can use the paypal “Donate” button in the upper right corner.  I think, as gun owners, it’s important for us to support the people who support us.

UPDATE: Clayton has a picture up:

(Click to embiggen)

For those of you who have long wondered, yes, that’s Bitter.  From left to right, Dave Hardy, Me, Joe Olsen, Bitter, and Clayton Cramer.  Definitely one of the great things about blogging is getting to meet people who’s names you’ve known since you got into RKBA issues. These gentlemen are indeed people we are lucky to have on our side.

Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmens Clubs, Allegheny County Sportsmens League, and Pennsylvania Firearms Owners Association, along with several other groups, will be rallying in Harrisburg on Monday April 7th, 2008.

I have made arrangements to be able to attend this rally, and I hope you will all join me in going.  We are under constant assault by anti-gun forces here in Pennsylvania, and we need to push our own legislative agenda.  We can’t let the anti-gunners gain an inch of ground.  We must let the folks in Harrisburg know that we’re here, and we’re active.  Our continued gun rights in Pennsylvania depend on it.