Category: Gun Rights Organizations

Greg says it would make him quit NRA over it.   I also think it would be a bad idea, but temper that with the fact that a Hillary Clinton or Obama would be an utter disaster.  If Rudy wants to put more originalist thinking justices on The Court, I might be willing to overlook his past if he’s running against The Hildabeast or Obama.   Run him against Richardson though, and Richardson ought to get the endorsement hands down.

Uncle is talking about a new senate bill GOA is alerting on that shows, once again, that GOA doesn’t know how to read legislation. Now, I’m absolutely no fan of this bill that Congress wants to pass here, mostly because I think gang activity is generally not a federal matter. But here’s what GOA is claiming about this bill:

At issue is section 215 of the bill. In essence, your family, gun shop employees, or even church bowling league would be considered an organized “gang” and subjected to draconian prison sentences if you did any of a number of things, such as:

• having a gun (loaded OR unloaded) in your glovebox as you — inevitably — drive within 1,000 feet of a school, even if you didn’t know the school was there;
• selling a gun out of your store while being entrapped in a Bloomberg-style “sting” operation;
• teaching your son to shoot without giving him a written letter of permission (which must be on his actual person), even if you are standing right behind him at the range the whole time; or,
• simply being one the 83,000 veterans whose names were illegally added to the Brady system by President Clinton (or, presumably, one of the thousands more who will be on the list if the current Veterans Disarmament bill passes), if you continued to possess a firearm.

But does it define what a gang is? Why, yes, it does:

(1) CRIMINAL STREET GANG- The term `criminal street gang’ means a formal or informal group, organization, or association of 5 or more individuals–

(A) each of whom has committed at least 1 gang crime; and
(B) who collectively commit 3 or more gang crimes (not less than 1 of which is a serious violent felony), 3 or more in separate criminal episodes (not less than 1 of which occurs after the date of enactment of the Gang Abatement and Prevention Act of 2007, and the last of which occurs not later than 5 years after the commission of a prior gang crime (excluding any time of imprisonment for that individual)).

But what is a gang crime? Surely that’s rife for abuse right?

(2) GANG CRIME- The term `gang crime’ means an offense under or State Federal law punishable by imprisonment for more than 1 year, or a felony offense under State law that is punishable by a term of imprisonment of 5 years or more in any of the following categories:

In short, if you’re not already a prohibited person, you don’t have to worry about this bill. Like I said, I have federalism concerns with this, but I don’t have concern this is going to ensnare law abiding gun owners unjustly. Once again, GOA is scaring gun owners by misrepresenting legislation.

I will have to get caught up with what’s been happening on all your blogs over the weekend.  I was essentially out of the loop for three days, unfortunately.  Normal blogging will resume shortly.

I had a productive second day.  Bloggers are being treated very well, and very seriously by NRA.  The Public Policy meeting spent a lot of time in executive committee, so I spent a lot of time outside.  I talked a bit with Amy Lovato, who is Jeff Cooper’s granddaughter, while we were locked out of the meeting.  Also got to talk a bit with a new NRA member that Sandy Froman invited along as a guest; hopefully soon to be Professor Lee.  He seemed to have some interest in reaching out to the Asian community, and starting a campus shooting club when he ended up getting hired as a professor.   People who are that enthusiastic about the issue are always an asset, as are people who wear Springfield XDs under their suit jacket :)

Lunch table today was Congressman Bob Barr, who was seated away from me, unfortunatly, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to him much.  I also managed to speak with Timothy Pawol, who is one of the Pennsylvania board members.  You really can’t get two Pennsylvania gun guys together without the subject of Ed Rendell being a shit come up, and for good reason.   We talked about the recent PICS shutdown, which is making me more convinced I need to look into that issue in greater depth.   It was a good contact to make.

I would encourage any NRA member who doubts the organization’s commitment to the cause, or thinks they are selling us out to come to an annual meeting, or a board meeting, and sit in, and talk to some of the people who do this stuff.  The NRA is not perfect.  They are a large organization that can’t be turned on a dime, and there’s no such things as perfection in politics.  But the people in the NRA, both board and staff, give up a lot of their time and money for the cause.  I don’t think anyone would do this if they weren’t committed.

I’m continuing my attendance of the NRA board meeting into the afternoon, at which time I pick up Bitter, then drive back to Pennsylvania.  I’ll comment more later.   Sorry for the sparse posting, but I do think it’s important for bloggers to have a voice within NRA, and for NRA to be able to communicate with us and our community.

Just so you know, board member committee meetings are open to all NRA members.  Anyone can come listen in.  Executive committee or executive sessions are restricted only to the board, but the majority of the stuff going on here is accessible by any NRA member.  Anyone who wants to come see how the organization works should plan to attend one.

I’m actually in Arlinton attending the NRA board of directors meeting as a guest of one of the board members. Very interesting so far. Not much time to be online, so I have to cut thigns short.

Despite my fear of public speaking, I managed to force myself to stand up and have my say at our club’s board meeting.   Sadly, I don’t think I had much impact, because the board indicated that the ballot measure to end our club’s 100% NRA participation was a done deal.  I urged the board to allow NRA to send someone up to talk to us.  A few indicated NRA just wanted to talk about HR2640, and it wasn’t only about HR2640.  They also claim NRA didn’t want to talk to membership, but only a few select board members.   That’s the the impression I got from NRA, but several board members also confirmed this was the case.

So in short, the vote will go ahead.  NRA will not be talking to us, it seems.  There was, at least, one other board member who I managed to talk to.  I have two people who are sympathetic to my cause I didn’t have before.