Snowflakes in Hell

AHSA is apparently blaming NRA for Cooper’s ouster.  First I heard anything from NRA on this one was Andrew’s comment in the USA Today article I linked to that mentioned me.  It continues to amaze me how much these groups think NRA is capable of.  Even if NRA were handing us marching orders, it would have to go through six different lawyers and layers of approval, to make sure no campaign finance laws were broken, and various other things, before it even got to us.  Those of us in the blogosphere saw this, and brought attention to it.  The rest was entirely grass roots:

Today, on behalf of the American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA), I condemned the actions by the NRA and its cronies forcing Dan Cooper out.

The gun lobby’s attempt to destroy a good man and small business owner, a loyal member of the gun fraternity, again reveals the desperate Joe McCarthy-like politics of fear that the NRA leadership and others put first.  They are trying to scare America’s hunters and shooters into voting against Barack Obama — but we have one thing to say: vote hope and not fear.

We’re not the “gun lobby.”  We’re people who care about the Second Amendment, and when it comes to Barack Obama’s record on that issue, we’re not spreading fear, we’re spreading the truth.  Who are you going to believe?  Those of us who actually hunt and shoot, or a guy who runs a supposed “Hunters and Shooters” group who has donated $5000 to Handgun Control Inc.

… you know the rest.  I wanted to comment on a few things:

Fuck the Fudds.

They have been selling our gun rights down the river for the last 50 years.

They are ones who have allowed the anti-gun politicans to get away with the lie that the 2nd Amendement is about hunting.

And this:

I am on record supporting the banning of all Hunting Firearms that don’t have a self-defense purpose. Kill Bambi with your teeth, Hunters, if you can. The 2nd Amendment enumerates your right to self-defense, not some diaphonous right to shoot pheasants tied up in little cages under bushes that the guide releases when you get close.

All this is doing is helping the gun control folks is pull on the pry bars that they’ve wedged into the fissures of this movement.  This is exactly the attitude that I jumped on Dan Cooper for, just coming from our side instaed of his.  Understand that we need hunters in the gun movement.  As many as we can get.  We do not have the numbers to stand individually on our own, so that means we need to support the “fudds” even if all of them don’t always support us.

We have the data, and the arguments, to show that hunting is in every bit as much danger, and perhaps more, as gun rights are.  Hunters may soon come to find they need us more than we need them.  When it comes to that, we need to stand by them.  The proper remedy is to convince hunters their interests lie with ours, and divisive language isn’t going to help achieve that.

Let the gun control people work the pry bars, we should be out there with cement trowels trying to smooth things over, not actively helping work the fissure.

As many of you know, I’ve been trying to recruit volunteers for pro-gun campaigns.  I’ve had a fair amount of luck getting people on my mailing list, having roughly doubled it in size.  But I’m having a real problem getting people to even show up at a rally with the possibility of great seating.  I’m wondering whether I’m doing something wrong, or not making the right pitch.

One reason people court our vote is because when it does come for election time, sportsmen typically do turn out to the polls.  But it takes more than that.  Candidates have to see sportsmen, and they need to talk to them.  They have to understand us, and understand our concerns.  They don’t get that if we’re just a number buried in sheets of polling data.  Already, in my district, I’m down to two endorsed state representative candidates.  I have two other Republican candidates that didn’t even bother to turn in their NRA questionnaire this election, and so are big “?” in the voting guides.

Politicians aren’t going to notice us if they don’t see us at rallies, in the volunteer offices, on the streets, and in the election booths, and in their mailboxes.  The reason my county is slowly pivoting from pro-gun to anti-gun is because sportsmen, who are numerous in this area, are doing nothing to prevent it.  It takes more than voting and complaining.  Gun owners and sportsmen really need to get off their butts and make the politicians pay attention to them.  That means supporting the good guys, just as much as it means bashing the bad ones.

By virtue of most news accounts, the board of Cooper Firearms asked for and received the resignation of Dan Cooper.  I do not believe the company, and in particular its several dozen employees, deserve to be punished for taking quick action to deal with anger from the community.  As far as I am concerned, the issue is over.  Our voices have been heard.

It might be true that Dan Cooper still owns stock in the company, and will still support Obama this election.  Think about how many business you patronize on a regular basis.  How many of those businesses have shareholders who donate money to anti-gun causes?  I’m sure there are quite a few.  I’m just not all that concerned if Cooper still holds a stake in the company.  The problem with this whole thing was not that Dan Copper, the citizen, donated money to Obama and intended to vote for him.  I might question his sanity, as a guy who makes his living making guns, for doing that, but that’s his right.  The problem is that Dan Cooper spoke as a leader within the firearms community, as CEO of a firearms company, and in USA Today, gave a glowing endorsement of a candidate for President who’s spent most of his political career trying to destroy the Second Amendment.  Cooper Firearms, the company, has done everything in their power to remedy this situation, and I’m going to come out and say they ought to be welcomed back into the community.

Here’s a sample of my Inbox from Obama supporters:

I read about what you did to Dan Cooper, you neo-nazi right wing bitch. You’re going to find out soon that you are in the minority, and we are not going to stand for people like you. Trying to ruin a good man’s life! You are scum.

John McCain will never win another election as long as he lives. Way to back the losing horse, and then get your name plastered all over USAToday for it.

From one american to another– FUCK YOU.

Stay Classy

You are a sick and a scary nutcase.  Thank God we have options in the U.S. and have the right to bear arms without you as our spokesman.  Please shoot you toe off instead of your mouth!!!

Who’s silencing who now?

I am an avid hunter from Michigan and our state will probably carry Obama.  My gun rights will not change because of this.  You Sir, are an ignorant PA. asshole.  Regards.

Have you looked at Obama’s record on guns?  I’m not the one that’s ignorant here.  Finally:

You can be traced, and someone can do this to you. Maybe I will show up outside your job, and picket them over you. Maybe I will write your local newspaper. Maybe I will just start my own blog, and rail against you until everything in your life is stripped away.

Like you did to Mr. Cooper.

I hope he does start his own blog.  The entertainment value would be high.  “What you did was wrong and despicable, so I’m going to do the same thing to you!”  Apparently he’s not heard about what happens if you add two wrongs together, even assuming that asking my fellow gun owners to tell a company you were unhappy about what their CEO was doing to them by supporting a man who’s tried to destroy the second amendment his entire political career.

Stay classy, Obama supporters.  Stay classy!

Bucks Right has the audio of Obama saying he supports banning concealed carry of a firearm federally, despite 40 states allowing concealed carry with a license, and two that do not require any license.  I’d love to see Obama tell Alaskans they can’t carry guns.  It’s grizzly bear food you can believe in!

John McCain is coming back to Southeastern Pennsylvania for the last time before Tuesday.  This should indicate that their data shows the election is much closer than the media is reporting.  Ed Rendell’s numbers must be showing that too, or he wouldn’t be telling Obama to get his butt back here.  I’m inviting anyone who wants to go to contact me, because if we can turn out 100 sportsmen, we’ll get special (i.e. good) seating.

Road to Victory Rally with John McCain and Tom Manion

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2008
Doors Open 12 noon, Program Begins 2pm
Pennridge Regional Airport
1100 North Ridge Road
Perkasie, PA

I know I have a fair number of Pennsylvania readers, so if you’re in the area, or don’t mind a drive, let me know.  It’s important for gun people to turn out.  Wear your NRA and sportsman’s gear.  Make sure the politicians know where their bread gets buttered.  It’s important that politicians see the pro-gun vote.  So come out if you can.  Even if you don’t care about McCain, Tom Manion definitely deserves support.

Here’s another article – not a blog post this time – about the effort to draw attention to Dan Cooper’s efforts working against gun owners by supporting Barack Obama. It not only mentions Peter again, but also quotes me.

Some gun websites had posted the company’s e-mail address and telephone number, encouraging gun owners to boycott the company and contact its top executives.”This needs to get around,” wrote a blogger who calls himself “Sebastian, a thirty something, self professed ‘gun nut’ living somewhere in Pennsylvania.” He added: “Gun owners need to know which companies sell their interests down the river. Here’s contact info for Cooper Firearms. I would talk to them, and be sure they know Obama’s record, why you’re not voting for him, and why you’ll never buy one of their products.”

I love that Bob Ricker calls me a whacko!

USA Today is reporting on the ouster of Dan Cooper. Includes a link to Firearms and Freedom, and credits gun bloggers in helping generate the outrage.

Well, at least the gun issue is getting some traction in this election.  I know we kind of sneer as groups like the Brady Campaign grasp for relevance, but the silence on the gun issue has actually hurt us too.  The media is burying it, largely because it hurts Obama more than it helps him.

You might think that any gun owner worth his salt knows Obama’s record, but trust me, they don’t.  A lot of them are concerned about other issues this election, and hearing Obama say he supports the Second Amendment is enough for them to vote on other issues that are concerning them.  This is a big problem in Pennsylvania, where the unions have been active conspirators in convincing their membership that Barack Obama is an OK guy on guns.  In a state where a lot of gun voters overlap with union voters, that can hurt when combined with media silence.

UPDATE: Chris Cox has an editorial in the Washington Times as well.

The Boston Globe seems to think we need to ban kids from touching guns:

Incredibly, there is no minimum age to fire a gun in Massachusetts. All that is required for someone under 18 is parental consent and the presence of a licensed instructor. That is a massive loophole that has to be closed, especially when parents show such poor judgment about their children’s well-being. In this case, many more children could have been accidentally cut down.

This would end the shooting sports and hunting within a generation if it was allowed to come to pass.  Some of us got into shooting as adults, but most of us did not.  If you’re going to have guns in the house, your children should know to respect them.  When they are old enough, actually teaching them to shoot safely is probably among the best ways to do that.

The co-chair of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security, Michael Costello of Newburyport, hopes to hold hearings on the problem in November. He is wisely thinking about setting a minimum age of 15 for firing an automatic weapon, the same age a youth can obtain a license for a rifle or shotgun with a parent’s permission.

This would actually be an improvement over current Massachusetts law, which seems to ban automatics for anyone under 21.  The problem is, the law they are actually looking at passing would appply to the types of semi-automatic rifles used in NRA HP competition, and CMP competition, which junior shooters often compete in.  These firearms are not any more dangerous than other types of firearms that are generally considered age appropriate.

I might lose my gun nut street creds over this one, but I agree with Dan Wasserman that his cartoon isn’t tasteless.  I don’t think Wasserman and I would have much to agree with when it comes to “the gun lobby” or what kind of age limits should be put on what, or whether this is even something that needs to be legislated at all, but political cartoonists satirize society.  That’s what they do.  You can disagree with the message, but I think Wasserman is in the clear here when it comes to a charge of tastelessness.

Good thing I bought a Kel-Tec I guess.   Of course, it would be nice if I could actually shoot my P-3AT at some point.   Why can’t Glock make a pocket rocket?

Ahab wants to have you on his show.

From Tam, who is thinking of creating her own training method:

That way I make money, and they get to take home a certificate and tell their friends that they’re “trained”. And since the odds of them being in a shootout in suburbia are slim to frickin’ none, we’re all happy. It’ll be awesome. I just need to think up a name for my technique and order some shirts with epaulettes.

Gotta love Philadelphia fans.

Apparently one of the Writers on the HuffPo stabbed her former lover to death with an assault screwdriver (i.e. phillips head, or double vodka, depending on context).  Two hundred and twenty two times!  She then shot herself.  I anxiously await her colleague at the HuffPo, Paul Helmke, to condemn this senseless act of screwdriver violence.

Eat that suckas.  To celebrate, Bitter and I got milkshakes from Wawa.  In what the Obama campaign surely would classify as racism, Bitter got Vanilla.  A long time coming is right.  I barely remember the last World Series win in 1980.  I remember 1983, where they went and lost, and 1993, where the same thing happened.

It looks like they are asking Dan Cooper to resign:

The employees, shareholders and board of directors of Cooper Firearms of Montana do not share the personal political views of Dan Cooper.

Although we all believe everyone has a right to vote and donate as they see fit, it has become apparent that the fallout may affect more than just Mr. Cooper.  It may also affect the employees and the shareholders of Cooper Firearms.

The board of directors has asked Mr. Cooper to resign as President of Cooper Firearms of Montana, Inc.

Daily operations will continue with the competent staff currently in place in Stevensville, MT producing the finest, most accurate rifles money can buy.

Dan Cooper has spent all of his working life producing the highest quality rifles built here in the USA.  He started with nothing but the American Dream and built that into firearms company anyone would be proud of.  We firmly believe Dan stands by the 2nd amendment.

We wish him all of the best in his future pursuits.

So Dan has been asked by the board to resign from the company he himself founded.  It’s sad that it has to come to things like this, but he’s supporting a candidate who would disarm us all if he could find a way.  I might buy the notion that Dan Cooper believes in the Second Amendment, I just don’t think it’s very important to him.  It can’t be if you’re voting for a candidate who spent much of his public life trying to destroy it.  Cooper Firearms is doing the right thing here.  If Dan Cooper does indeed step down, I think we should consider that a satisfactory resolution to this situation.

I should have figured this kind of thing would be something Bryan Miller would jump in to.  No tragedy too horrible that Bryan Miller won’t exploit to smear gun owners as a whole.  I don’t think it’s possible to have a reasonable discussion on guns with Bryan Miller.  He’s shown himself to be hysterical, and not interested in rational discussion.  Certainly not with those who understand what machine guns are, and what their inherent dangers are and aren’t.  He’d probably be shocked to find out that I agree that someone was dangerously irresponsible in creating the conditions that lead to this accident.  But he can’t have that discussion without bringing the rest of his vile baggage to the table.

UPDATE: I couldn’t resist a comment:

[...] Machine guns are not more inherently dangerous than any other firearm. With proper supervision and a bit of training on use, they are safe to shoot. The reason this accident happened, is because someone supervising had a tragic lapse in judgment. It would be like if pop had handed over the wheel to his high-powered speed boat, and the kid ran it into the pier. Would we condemn speed boating? No. Speed boaters? No. Would we argue that pop has some issues with judgment? Absolutely.

There are about 12 million registered recreational boats in the United States, which caused about 34 accidental deaths of children under the age of 13 in 2005.  There are 200 million guns in the United States, which cause 65 accidental deaths per year of children under 13.  Given there is more than an order of magnitude more firearms, this is a remarkable safety record.  For comparison, the number of cycling deaths in that age group is 94.   Source here.

SayUncle was on top of it while I was busy digging up Dan Cooper’s campaign donating records.  I guess the Pennsylvania State Police are giving free lessons on operating illegal gun databases to neighboring states.

You know, when the “crazy” folks said all this instant check stuff was really a conspiracy to register all gun sales, only to have people tell them “you’re crazy, there are built-in legal protections to make sure that doesn’t happen” — it’s usually not very helpful to make their worst paranoid delusions actually come true.  That destroys credibility, and makes it harder for us pragmatic persons, or “prags” as we are often called, to argue that the political process is a worthwhile outlet to redress their grievances.

There are hundreds of machine gun shoots that happen across the country without incident every year.  It’s a great way for a curious public to come and learn about automatic firearms, and try them out, in a controlled and safe environment.  I’ve never seen someone shoot an automatic weapon that didn’t come away from the shooting line with a big shit-eating-grin on their face.  Done right, I think machine gun shoots are actually a great public relations tool.  But the key to doing it right is “controlled” and “safe”, and pretty clearly what happened in Westfield fell down on both those counts.

Every accident that happens at organized and public shooting events is going to be examined under the microscope of public scrutiny.  All it takes is one tragedy to lose the perception among the public that this is a safe activity.  All it takes is one accident for hysterics and anger to get directed back at the shooting community as a whole.  Other sports get a break.  We don’t.  And on top of all that, there’s a tangled web of legal issues involved, especially when you bring machine guns into the picture.

There is no universe where an eight-year-old kid with little prior firearms experience should be handed a fully loaded machine pistol and told to go to town.  I don’t care if his dad said he had fired guns before.  I don’t care how excited the kid is to try to shoot one.  Machine pistols legitimately are more dangerous in untrained hands than other ordinary firearms.  Most other shoulder fired or mounted automatics are heavy enough that even a novice user can retain control.  Machine pistols are another story.  I once had my friend’s M11, which is similar in size and weight to the Micro Uzi, get away from me while firing it on full automatic.  No rounds were sent in an unsafe direction, but the baffling and armor plating on the range took a hit as a pulled the last round high.  It was embarrassing.  That wasn’t the first time I had ever fired a machine pistol either.  I never fired that gun on automatic again unless I had a death grip on it.  Anyone who’s familiar enough with a machine pistol to instruct with one ought to know that you must use extreme caution in teaching beginners.  There is no way I would let an eight year old handle a machine pistol.

This is a tragedy on multiple fronts.  It’s a tragedy because a child died.  It’s also a tragedy because a family has been ruined.  It’s a tragedy for the father, who is going to have to live with this for the rest of his life.  Finally, it’s a tragedy because there are probably going to be good people, who pose no danger to society, going to prison over this.  There is no way for Justice to prevail here.  There is no wrong that can be righted.  But a child died in a gun accident in Massachusetts, and you can bet that someone is going to be made to pay.  It might not be justice, but it is the law.

Dave Hardy notes that contributions are listed for Daniel Cooper in two states, which are high enough to take him over the legal campaign contribution limit:

Egad; looks as if he might be involved in the reports of Obama illicit donations. Go here to see contributions by Dan or Daniel Cooper. $3,100 to Obama from a Dan Cooper in Montana, president/CEO of Cooper Arms. Plus $3,100 to Obama from a Daniel Cooper in Ohio, also president/CEO of Cooper Firearms of Montana. Got to be the same guy. And why use different names, States, and company names, except to conceal the fact that the cumulative donations are illegal? (The limit is $2,300 for the primary and the same for the general).

This just gets better.

UPDATE: Dave notes in the update that the campaign seems to have refunded the overage, so no harm done here.  This kind of thing happens fairly often, since people often don’t know what the contribution limits are, or forgot how much they’ve already given.

UPDATE: It turns out there was nothing illegal or funny going on here.  It was a mistake.  The other accusations of Cooper’s support of Obama’s candidacy still stand.

This is why I get so pissy at anti-gun groups.  Via Murdoc:

In response to this tragedy, Freedom States Alliance (FSA), a national coalition of gun violence prevention groups along with the New England Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence (NECPGV), are calling for legislation to be passed immediately that would require that no child under the age of 18-years-old be allowed to use or operate any fully automatic machine gun, or semi-automatic assault weapon under any circumstances including at a “machine gun shoot,” shooting competition or firearm demonstration.

That’s absolute bullshit, especially since so-called assault weapons are common in competition shooting, and there’s absolutely nothing dangerous about junior shooters using them.  This tragedy was entirely a function of the firearm in question being a machine pistol.  But these groups are not beyond using a tragedy to try to get whatever they can while people are in hysterics.  Getting to outlaw junior service rifle competition is just icing on the cake to these folks.

The Philadelphia case challenging statewide preemption is being appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.  It should be noted that The Court is being asked to turn over a decade old ruling, which confirms well established law.  This is merely an appeal, The Court might choose not to hear it, leaving the lower court ruling stand.