Snowflakes in Hell

From the comments:

Hi.

Long distance murder rifles? Ban .22s and shotguns for the children?

That was me.

I settled on this board by the complicated algorithm of flipping some coins. Now that the Brady Campaign has gotten myspace to return the /bradycampaign blog to their ownership, there’s no reason for me to not come out with what I have to say, and I have a lot to say.

For example, the amount of messages and comments I got stunned me. Thousands apon thousands. The blog itself was getting 10,000+ views every day. (I regret not screenshotting this)

I want to make some comments about how we have to accomplish standing together, “fudds” and EBR owners, as long as you guys want to hear me out. Oh, I’d have gone to ar15.com since they had 5+ threads about it, but the registration never emailed me. So you guys are stuck with me.

So it would seem Kevin Baker was right all along. It was one of our own. Now I feel kind of bad for screwing up his scheme :)

UPDATE: I didn’t realize my commenter was not the actual MySpace dude. He was quoting a post you can read over here. For future reference, you can quote sections using the <blockquote></blockquote> in the comment area, if you want to make a quote of something else.

I started a comment in the last thread and decided it would probably be a more effective post. Sailorcurt mentioned in a comment:

I disagree with the big picture conclusion however: the implication that we can’t be more effective if we mobilize on Washington Politics like we did on Zumbo.

I wouldn’t really assert that conclusion. I think Zumboing does make us more effective, but it’s just another tool, and we’re not at the point yet where we can expect that tool to have as much of an impact on Congress as it did on the industry as a whole, for the reasons I pointed out. I will never discourage people from writing their Congress Critters on the gun issue, and I think it’s a good idea to do that often. But the points I was trying to make, sorry if they weren’t clear, were:

• We have to continue bringing more people into the RKBA community.
• We have to continue traditional forms of political lobbying, and that is going to still represent most of our political muscle in Congress.
• We can’t count on Zumboing tactics to have the same effect on Congress they had on the industry.

But the more I’m thinking about it, the less I think we can talk about Zumboing as if it’s something we have under our control. The community saw an issue and, collectively, decided to go after it. It’s not like we had a leader sitting in an ivory tower, announcing “Smithers, release the hounds!”. I’m not sure that would even be desirable. When the next big thing comes down the pike, we’ll know, and will spontaneously organize.

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing at all, or that we shouldn’t do it. Just that we shouldn’t expect too much of it, and figure that other forms of activism (I hate that word) we’ve traditionally used are now less important, because this form will be effective.

I want to talk about another meme moving around in the gun blogosphere that goes something like this: “Wow, look at what we managed to do to Jim Zumbo! If we only applied that kind of pressure to Congress, we’d be buying MP5s from Wal-Mart in no time!”. Oh, how I wish that were true. But it’s not.

What we have done with the Zumbo thing is demonstrate that shooters, particular we evil black rifle shooters, are now a force to be reckoned with within the shooting community. When we talk, the industry listens. This makes sense for them, because we constitute one of the growth markets for the industry. We’re buying more rifles, we’re buying more ammunition, and we’re active politically. They can’t afford to piss us off, so it’s no surprise they dumped Zumbo like a hot potato when we started to squeeze them.

That doesn’t translate into political power outside of the community. Jim Zumbo was one man, and the number of players in this industry are few, and they depend on us. Once you’re talking Congress, you’re talking 435 memebers of The House and 100 members in The Senate. Now you’ve gone from a handful of people you have to infleunce, to 535 people. And those 535 people have hundreds of other interests they listen to, and can count on for votes and money. In short, we can rule our little estuary, but that’s not to say we’re the big fish once we swim into the sea.

The new voice we’ve found as a community with the whole Jim Zumbo thing is great, and useful. It will come in handy the next time we have a big political fight on our hands. But we still need to reach out to more people who might not be as involved or as informed as we are about these issues, and will still have to play the dirty game of politics as we have been. What I don’t want to see happen is people thinking, because we managed to destroy Jim Zumbo’s career, that we can just make demands on politicians and get our way; we can’t.

We’re still just another interest group, a powerful one, no doubt, but there’s still a lot of work to do. Zumboing will be another political tool in our arsenal, but we will have to be careful about how we use that tool. Using it in the wrong place or the wrong time could wear it out, and ruin it’s political effectiveness. So my advise to everyone out there is that we continue to work hard to bring more people into the issue, and not get too cocky with our new found power.

I’m not sure I’d agree with the assertion out there that we’re about to divide into Fudds and Shooters. I’ve seen few people defending Zumbos actual comments, but I think a lot of people lining up in his corner are defending Jim Zumbo the man, more than defending what he said. We do need to be careful not to be seen by the hunting community as sharks that are tasting blood in the water, and are ready to go into a frenzy.

I agree with folks who have pointed out that Jim is “Stuck on Fudd” with his comments that indicate he still only views AR-15s through the lens of their hunting utility. This really shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering Zumbo is a lifelong hunter. Now, don’t get me wrong, I want to see Jim jump back on the second amendment bandwagon and start helping reach out to hunters to make them understand what’s at stake, but you can’t expect the guy to change who he is, and what he loves to do. We should let Jim remain a hunter at heart, because that’s what he is. He’s never going to become one of us, in all liklihood. All we should ask of him is that he get on board with defending gun rights, all guns rights, period. If he wants to not like AR-15s because he doesn’t like to hunt with them, fine.

The reason it’s important, is because the majory of hunters that Jim can reach have absolutely no idea what went on this past weekend. Unless Outdoor Life runs a summary piece of the incident, you’ll have hundreds of thousands of hunters out there who will get subsequent issues and think “What ever happened to ol’ Jim Zumbo? I really used to love reading his great hunting articles.” It’s those people that we need to reach. Jim would be a good vehicle for that if he can be educated. But we must be patient an tolerant in that process. My vote is let The Nuge work his magic, and we’ll see where it goes from there.

Interesting. The MySpace page seems to have been altered, with different content being substituted streamed right from the Bradys:

Which means, that both the MySpace page is pulling content from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership’s main page, and the Brady Bunch is letting them (note the xshare/myspace/ subdirectory)

Possibilities are that the Brady Campaign managed to get MySpace to turn the blog over to them, which is Standard Mischeif’s theory (I agree), and they removed the content, or they convinced the person running it to remove the stuff, and accept their stream. Or they really did run the site and were a bit paniced when we caught them ;)

I think the Bradys were telling the truth about the blog not being associated with them, and got the blog turned over. It was using their trademarks, so they do have a legal leg to stand on if they demanded that.

Some of the google search words coming in are interesting. One thing GoStats does that Sitemeter doesn’t is keep a record of which phrases bring people in on an ongoing basis. One of my top searches is:

“panic gun buying because of democratic congress”

I have some suggestions if that’s what you’re coming around looking for:

Springfield M1A - Not a great panic buy, because it’s never had a pistol group, but still is named in most bans. I don’t have one, but should.

Barrett M82A1 - This rifle makes the anti-gunners weep, and they definitely want to ban it. If you can afford over 10 grand for one of these babies with some decent optics attached, go for it. I want one of these, but I also need a house.

FN Five-seven - Good for people who like pistols that might be banned.

SIG 556 - Like a Swiss watch, that goes bang. Extra scary looking to Congressional Democrats.

Arsenal SLR-108 Kalashnikov - Great panic buy! Nothing pisses of anti-gun folks quite like the idea of someone being able to buy and shoot an AK. Arsenal AKs are pretty decent. I have one myself. I recommend.

FN PS90 - Personal Defense Weapon. Fires the same round as the FN Five-seven. Hasn’t been in production long. Definitely scary looking. Good post-ban value if you ever have to sell it. SBR version available if you want to do the NFA thing. (I would, the 16″ version is fugly)

Robinson Arms XCR - Choose form three calibers. Easy switching of calibers. Extra scary looking to gun banners. Adjustable gas system. May be my panic purchase :)

So there you have it panic buyers! Nothing pissess off Carolyn McCarthy more than stocking up on your favorite black rifle, so spend away.

From Phil Elmore of The Martialist:

A man who presumes to tell you that you cannot own a firearm is not just pissing on the United States Constitution and the Second Amendment; he is presuming to tell you how much your life is worth. He is saying he sees no reason to make it easier for you to defend that life, or the lives of your family. He is declaring his supremacy over you by presuming to judge your life and its value. If there is a more tyrannical worldview, I don’t know what it might be.

Whenever your firearms rights are attacked, therefore, you have no choice but to see that attack, ideologically, as an attempt to devalue your life. You are fully within your rights to speak out, loudly and persistently, in opposition to such presumption. You are also correct to be outraged that anyone would presume to tell you what your life is worth.

Yup! Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Hat tip: Of Arms and the Law