Snowflakes in Hell

Bitter looks at some claims GOA is making in regards to its membership and influence, and the numbers just don’t add up.

Cemetery’s Gun Blob is new to the whole gun rights scene, so I’m going to offer him a bit of advice on his attending a NJCDL meeting last night:

But was interesting to learn, is that the NRA doesn’t have NJ on it’s radar, and it’s pretty much up to us NJ gun owners to take action.  NJ is such an anti gun state, the NRA doesn’t really have a vested interest since the lines aren’t clear.  There are Anti’s on both sides of the fence here, and by voting Republican can actually hurt you.  And by voting Democrat can actually help you.  There were a few people who said they were Pro Gun Democrats there.  NJ is it’s own beast I say, on so many levels.

Rule number one of gun activism is always take what other groups say about NRA with a grain of salt.  That even goes for a lot of state associations.  It’s not at all true that NRA doesn’t pay any attention to New Jersey: they do.  It’s just exceedingly difficult to win there.  New Jersey also has a good state association, even better than Pennsylvania’s, which doesn’t do donkey to stand up for gun rights over here.

But that’s not to say that the message about it being up to gun owners isn’t correct.  Mobilizing gun owners has always been something volunteers do.  Almost half of New Jersey’s congressional districts have no EVCs.  That means no one in those districts is working to help get pro-gun politicians in office, and anti-gun politicians out.  NRA does not ignore New Jersey, but they can only do so much if Garden State Gun Owners don’t stand up and do something to help.

I’m in the car on the way home from the NRA Board Meeting.  Bitter and I didn’t stay for the whole meeting.  We decided to head over to The Nations Gun Show in Chantilly, VA to meet up with reader AughtSix.  I bought some primer, powder, and bullets while I was there, and then AughtSix was gracious enough to treat Bitter and I to some BBQ.

It’s good for us to go to the meeting to represent bloggers.  NRA has really put themselves out there with the outreach, and there’s a lot of interest in bloggers and blogging among staff and board members.  They have shown themselves to be serious in reaching out to us, and I think it’s important for us to show we’re serious about being part of the NRA.  It helps validate NRA’s effort in this for board members and staff to see us there.  Hopefully this is a relationship that will continue to develop.  The NRA/Blogger relationship has come a long way since the 2007 Fall Board Meeting when Chris Cox and I sat down to figure out how we could work together.

Last night Bitter and I had the honor of attending the President’s Reception.  My iPhone camera isn’t the greatest, but I managed to snap a couple of blurry photos.  One of them is President Sigler thanking Alan Gura for his work on the case, the other is of David Young with his book marked up with all the citations that he’s gotten on the various court cases, including Heller.  Alan Gura said I should promote David’s book, and I couldn’t agree more.  They are:

• The Origin of the Second Amendment (paperback here)
• The Founders’ View of the Right to Bear Arms
  

We owe a great deal of gratitude to David, and to all attorneys and scholars who were recognized by President Sigler.  Without them, we would not have had victory in Heller.

We started out going to the Public Affairs Committee.  Nothing of note really happened there, and it was relatively uneventful.  Susan Howard, of the TV show “Dallas” fame chairs that committee.  Main topic was on increasing membership numbers, through reaching out to younger people.  NRA is focusing efforts to attract more members from our police and military, who will tend to be younger.

Wayne LaPierre mentioned that a lot of young shooters have parents and grandparents who are NRA members, but have not joined themselves.  He also mentioned that the latest polling shows that the public perception of NRA has never been more favorable.  Wayne mentioned NRA traditionally hasn’t had a lot of money to do advertising, but they are setting up funds to address that, and get the NRA message out there.

Chris Cox’s report to the committee stressed the upcoming elections, saying “at five to four, it’s frightening.” in reference to the fact that the next administration will likely pick two or possibly three of the next Supreme Court justices.

After the Public Affairs Committee, Bitter and I made our way to the Civil Rights Defense Fund Committee.  Although what goes on there isn’t, strictly speaking, privileged information, it wouldn’t be a good thing for me to spread details to the four corners of the earth.  But Civil Rights Defense fund is the committee which funds the legal defense for gun owners who have their second amendment rights violated.  One thing about CRDF is they never have enough money to fund all the cases they would like to take.

CRDF also funds the research of Dave Hardy and Dave Kopel, who both gave reports on their research to the committee.  Dave Hardy, in particular, has done some really outstanding work in the past few months.  I’ll leave it up to him to elaborate on that if he wants to, but hopefully he’ll get it published soon, because it’s good stuff.  Dave Kopel has been working hard on research on the international front, which we’ve talked about a lot on here.  Funding their research is money will spent, as far as I’m concerned.  The CRDF also recognized attorney Steven Poss, who convinced his firm to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of legal work to help us win the Heller case.

Bitter and I had a surprise appearance on Cam & Company.  Surprise to us, because we went there to say hi to Cam and ended up doing two segments on the show in studio.  I think I did pretty well!  Despite the fact that I can’t shut up here, I am not a talkative guy in real life, so having to be the social butterfly at these things is not a natural act for me.

At least until 9:00PM tomorrow, you can catch us on the rerun at nranews.com.  Just click through the introductions, and a link to the last show will appear.  Let me tell you, it’s thrilling to be on Cam’s show.  But it’s even more thrilling to have people sending talk backs for me on his show.  For you readers who have sent me stories, I will get to them.  It’s tough to blog with the NRA committee schedule, and catching up with people I know.  A lot of NRA people are reading gun blogs now, and they know who we are.  It’s quite a difference from a year ago, when NRA was just touching their toes into the bloggy waters.  Now they are in for the swim.

I knew Legal affairs would be iffy to attend.  Mostly because discussion of that stuff tends to be sensitive — when you’re dealing with attorney client privileges, and with NRA being a party to lawsuits, I had a feeling we might not get to stay long.  After a brief introduction by Chris Cox, where he outlined two pronged legislative and legal approach with getting Washington D.C. to comply with the Heller ruling, the committee went into executive session and we had to leave, along with Dave Hardy, who doesn’t have a seat on that committee.

Hunting policy was actually a pretty interesting committee meeting.  Legislative affairs is mostly stuff I’m already pretty aware of, so it’s not really anything surprising.  Most of the really interesting information comes out in the discussions in executive committee.  But this had several issues that I wasn’t wasn’t at all familiar with.

One thing NRA has been working on is right-to-hunt constitutional amendments.  Oklahoma has been the first state to pass one of these consitutional amendments, which has strong language and actually offers protection for hunters.  Other states have such amendments, but usually include wording such as “subject to the state regulatory powers.” which makes the right effectively symbolic.  Oklahoma’s has real teeth.  Right now they are working with states where the game commissions are constitutional entities, since it makes it easier to create right-to-hunt provisions, while still maintaining the comissions’ ability regulate hunting in accordance with sound wildlife management processes.

Another thing that’s happened is that the Bush Administration has declared a conference to rethink this whole North American Wildlife Conservation Model, which was established by Teddy Roosevelt nearly 100 years ago.  Some updating of policy would be beneficial to sportsmen, but obviously this model has worked for nearly a century, so major changes would not be in the interest of sportsmen.  NRA is working with various other groups to make sure this turns out to be beneficial to sportsmen.

One issue that was brought up that I think is very facinating is the issue of the fence between the United States and Mexico, which has serious implications when it comes to hunting and conservation.  The fence is apparently not planned to consistently follow the border, but will cut off significant parts of United States territory to hunters.  The fence is also meant to stop people, but it wll also stop a lot of wildlife and game species which range across Mexico and the southern United States, which will have the effect of cutting some populations of from another.  Understand that NRA is not taking a position for or against a border fence here, just that it was discussed in terms of its impact on hunters and wildlife.

I had the opportunity to attend both The Legislative Policy Committee, and also the Hunting And Wildlife Policy Committee, which I’ll talk about later.  All the NRA committee meetings are starting out this year with a disclaimed about the Biparisan Campaign Finance Reform Act, and asked if anyone was working as an employee of a volunteer for a campaign for federal office.  Committee members or attendees who raised there hands were asked to recuse themselves from the proceedings as to avoid any charge of “coordination”.

After that Chris Cox went into his address.  Although Norton’s bill has been voted out of committee, if the House leadership lives up to their end of the bargain, it will be HR6691 that ends up getting passed.  Once out of The House, it will be an uphill battle to get the Senate to pass the bill before the end of their session, but NRA intends to try.

The next big issue is the National Park rule change to allow carrying of firearms for self-defense.  We were told that the new rule could be expected on or around October 8th.  Cool.

Then onto BATF reform.  There are two issues on this front.  Ongoing is the effort to get The BATF Modernization and Reform Act, HR4900 passed.  The other is that NRA has been working with Sullivan’s office at ATF in an attempt to fix ATF new ridiculous definition of “manufacturing” which even includes giving a paint job to firearms.

They are also actively working with the Transportation Security Administration to change the new rule that prohibits checking .50BMG or larger rounds in checked baggage.  This has been a big problem for big game hunters, who use the larger rounds.  Apparently a more legitimate interpretation on the DOT rules would allow calibers up to .75, which covers just about all the cartridges out there which are currently lawful.

I would also note that one of the committee members asked Chris about their blogger outreach efforts, and Chris said he was very supportive of the effort, and there was every intention of continuing these relationships.  He mentioned the NRA-ILA mix and mingle happy hour in Louisville, as something ILA did as a thank to for the work we’ve done.

The rest of the committee was done in executive session, which is limited to committee members.  Right now the Legal Affairs Committee is starting, so I need to wrap this up and head over to that.

I will be going to the fall meeting of the NRA Board of Directors this Thursday through Saturday, to report on the major themes, or any interesting happenings.  What I expect will be major topics of discussion are the coming election in November, getting H.R.6691 passed as quickly as possible, and legal strategies post-Heller.  The board meetings also allow me the opportunity to meet up with fellow bloggers Scott Bach, Tom King (both blogging board members), and usually Dave Hardy and Dave Kopel (not board members, but usually around).

As I’ve said before, NRA is not a closed society.  Any member is free to attend the board meeting and watch the proceeding.  If you get to know some of your local board members, they can invite you in to sit in on some of the committee meetings, which are open for observance by members.

Bitter does a much more detailed comparison of the outreach by the Republican National Committee and the Democrat National Committee when compared to the National Rifle Association.  In short, NRA did pretty well in comparison.

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.

Read more »

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.

It’s been something I’ve been wondering, but I think Palin’s addition to the ticket might change things.  I still lean toward the idea that McCain is not worthy of an endorsement, but then I think how much is on the line this election.  McCain is far from perfect, but I think it should be considered in the following light:

• Gerald Ford never met a “reasonable gun law” he didn’t support, and is responsible for Stevens being on The Court.
• Ronald Reagan favored the enactment of the Brady Act, but also nominated Kennedy and Scalia to The Court.
• George H.W. Bush, who was Reagan’s VP before becoming president, issued an executive order to ban so called assault weapons using his powers under the GCA of 1968.  While he put Souter on The Court, he also put Justice Thomas.
• Bob Dole did not receive an NRA endorsement in 1996 because of his stance on the Clinton gun ban, and lost to Bill Clinton.
• George W. Bush favored re-enacting the assault weapons ban.  Granted, his VP pick was pretty good, but Dick Cheney is a duck gun kind of guy.  Bush’s Solicitor General worked against us in Heller, but he put Roberts and Alito on The Court.
• McCain favors regulating private sales, but Palin is pretty solidly pro-gun, and is a hunter and NRA life member.  Unlike a lot of other politicians, he’s not afraid to oppose an assault weapons ban.  He’s picked up a lot of obscure pro-gun candidates and put them front and center on the public stage.

I’m not saying NRA should endorse McCain, but I’m not going to freak out if they do.  In terms of previous Republican presidents, McCain is really no worse, and may even be better.  I have no idea which way NRA is leaning in terms of an endorsement, but I’m willing to accept either course of action.  An endorsement has serious political consequences for how people on the ground may help his campaign.  While I wish McCain would repudiate his stance on private sales, gun owners have been able to make progress with a very imperfect endorsed presidential candidates from the 1980s to now.  I worry that ceding the White House to Barack Obama will cause us to lose everything we’ve worked on for the past decade.

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.

I have obtained my EVC packet from the Evil League of Evil in Fairfax, which contained various gun nutty trinkets, scads of bumper stickers, a DVD which does not work with my Mac, a completely list of instructions, a list of contacts, secret decoder book, locations of safe houses, and cyanide tablet in the event of capture.

Now I just have to await the transmission from headquarters, which outline NRA’s political priorities for my district, along with endorsed candidates, and determine which campaigns we’re supporting, and who we can direct volunteers to

Looks like I’ve been linked by NRA publications, in an article by Chris Cox.  But to me the neat thing is that the article appears in American Rifleman and America’s First Freedom.  If only dead tree media could drive click throughs, I’d be doing well traffic wise this month, I’d imagine.

Looks like he’s having his say in Bitter’s comments.  It looks like he’s distancing himself from previous comments.  He’s still not getting my vote.

We need to make sure this guy never gets on the board.  Pat Wray has been highlighted on the gun blogosphere before when he stood up for Jim Zumbo’s statements about “assault weapons”.  Needless to say, he’d be a long shot.  He’d have to run by petition, because there’s no way the nominating committee is going to give him space on the ballot, but keep in mind, there are NRA members who don’t know much about Wray, other than his outdoor writings.  It’s never a good idea to take this stuff for granted, so I’m glad Bitter found this tidbit.

The Supreme Court isn’t the only institution that’s gotten a boost in the polling data from Heller.  I wonder how the Brady Campaign and VPC are polling post Heller?  That pesky constitution’s a bitch isn’t it?