Snowflakes in Hell

It’s been a while since we’ve had content for the How Not to Win category here, and yet it seems we could fill it every day by featuring Martha Coakley’s Gaffe-of-the-Day antics.

We warn all the time about the trouble in dealing with the media if you haven’t prepared for it.  Martha Coakley’s volunteers should probably remember that next time they encounter a reporter with the video camera already turned on.

Things we can learn:

1. Calling someone who is there to report on your candidate a Nazi is probably not going to gain you any favors.
2. Calling them a Nazi with the camera turned on, well now you’re just trying to kill the campaign.
3. Cursing at someone trying to report on the campaign is generally not a good idea.
4. Do so while standing at the open door to the sidewalk with your candidate’s signs are on display means you start influencing potential voters to the other guy.

A very honest admission from Dennis Henigan, VP with Brady Center, about the difference between our two communities. He’s speaking of his book, Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths That Paralyze American Gun Policy:

Third, the “hogwash” votes reflect not only motivation, but organization as well. It is fascinating to me that organized efforts have been underway to sink the book under the weight of “1-star” reviews. On several websites followers are urged to send in negative reviews of the book (without, of course, urging them to read the book first). Gunbroker.com urges readers to “bury this book,” while giving helpful instructions on how to do amazon.com customer reviews. The Maryland Shooters Association suggests that its members post some “good” (meaning bad) reviews on amazon. These efforts obviously have had some success. Amazon prominently displays an “average customer review” for each book, which for Lethal Logic struggles to reach “3-stars” against the organized “1-star” campaign.

Two forums does not organization make, I would say. I’m not even sure how highly trafficked those forums are compared to, say, AR-15.com or PAFOA. So if Dennis Henigan is feeling the heat now, I can’t imagine what he would think of a serious Zumbo level campaign. But have no fear Mr. Henigan, we in the gun rights community seem to reserve the greatest ire for our own, rather than you folks on the other side. I would not be so quick to judge a whole community by the actions of a few.

I am of the opinion that we should obtain and read the books and writings of our opponents. A confident movement does not feel the need to elevate itself by disparaging others, hiding from controversy, or seeking to achieve victory in the public debate by shouting down opposing ideas without taking them seriously or understanding them. That’s how we go from a strong and confident movement to a weak one. That’s how new tactics and strategies creep up on us and gain momentum.

Ultimately, without building our own intellectual and academic case for gun rights, and taking the opposing wisdom on guns seriously, we would have lost Heller. What Dennis is witnessing might be a demonstration of grassroots energy, which our side certainly has in spades over their side, but it’s displays a lack of seriousness that I think we need if we’re going to keep this ball moving. If you’re going to give Dennis Henigan’s book a bad review, I think you at least ought to read it and come up with some real arguments for why it’s bad.

When I clicked through to read the bizarre AP report on the shocking(!) revelation that PACs raise money to donate to politicians friendly to their cause, I couldn’t help but notice some very bizarre statements by the head of the Tennessee gun group profiled.  Apparently the AP got hold of his pitch for raising PAC money:

Harris wrote that his goal is to raise $240,000, or $1 for every person with a handgun carry permit in Tennessee. But he acknowledged that that goal is likely unrealistic.

“Sometimes you make aspirational statements when you ask for money,” Harris said. “Although I would be tickled to death if we did, I have no expectations of raising a quarter-million dollars for the PAC.”

First, I love the pitch idea. It’s very tangible for people to understand and embraces those who don’t feel like they have enough money to participate in politics. If you have $1 to give, you’ve made a worthwhile investment. In a recession, that stands a chance at encouraging participation. Second, I appreciate that he is realistic in his goals. One thing sorely lacking among some on our side is any sense of political reality when it comes to participation by their gun owning peers. For practical planning purposes it is wise to realize that you may not meet that goal, and for this particular group, there are more than fair concerns with it.*

However, why the hell would you tell the Associated Press that you have no intention of meeting your goals? It’s one thing to predict a likely outcome, but it’s another to announce your failure for the world – donors and politicians included – to read. If I lived in Tennessee and received the donation request, I would have told Sebastian we should give because it’s a good cause and a good pitch. But if I read this article before the check went out the door, the check would never go out the door. With Harris already announcing to politicians that their PAC won’t be hugely successful, I’d suggest our check instead go to PVF where NRA will flex its muscle and tell politicians that gun owners are ready to give in order to protect our rights. If the state group is publicly conceding defeat in the press, then that tells me they aren’t interested in really flexing their muscle to make this happen.

Lesson: Be realistic, but don’t tell the world you plan to fail. Steer the conversation toward how motivated gun owners have been lately, especially in regards to politics. If the reporter really wants to talk money, talk about other ways gun owners have demonstrated they are ready to open their wallets with the run on guns and ammo. We’re already voting with our wallets, and now we’re ready to make that happen in the political world.

Another weird little element that caught my eye may or may not be a big deal. It’s possible that the reporter is making hay about it and Harris just commented on it, but I would be curious to know how they are handling this from a practical standpoint:

In the recent newsletter, Harris warned supporters that if they give more than $100 per quarter, their names and other identifying information will be included in campaign finance disclosures. Telling potential donors about that threshold in advance can help avoid uncomfortable situations later, he said.

“I want to make sure that if I call and say ‘who is your employer because I’ve got to put it on the form,’ that they don’t all of a sudden say ‘give me my money back,’ ” he said.

I can understand that the reason he probably did that is because gun owners are pretty sensitive about these things. With the reports published online, there is fair concern for people who aren’t “out of the closet” as gun owners in their professional lives. But to be honest, I would have been much more subtle about it. Rather than making a big deal, just make the donation check off amount $99 instead of $100. If you list higher amounts, then just put an asterisk with a notation at the bottom that more information is required for those giving $100 or more in a quarter. It’s subtle, but it gets the point across.

Hopefully, this is a case where the AP is creating a minor controversy where there is none. Given the overall nature of the article, it could easily be seen as such. However, if that’s the case, there was really no reason for Harris to talk about it at all. And even if he felt the need to elaborate, don’t say it’s because you’ll lose donations. That reinforces to serious donors that you plan to fail. Even if a donor does send in $100, don’t call him and make the only options give up the information or don’t give at all. The suggestion should be that they give $99 so as to support the cause and still have their privacy respected.

Lesson: Keep your trap shut when it doesn’t need to be open, especially when the person on the other line is clearly writing a piece that blows things out of proportion. There’s no need to create added paranoia with gun owners. Believe me, there are a few that are paranoid enough to cover us all. If that paranoia keeps regular Joe Gun Owner out of the political donation process, then you’ve lost when you really didn’t need to given a reasonable alternative.

*Using the state’s search report function, I cannot turn up any results from 2008 or 2009 with contributor information. According to filing records for donations made to candidates, they have not been any reported donations since 2000. At that time, they donated $125 to 19 candidates for a grand total of $2,375. Because I could not find contribution or PAC records from that year, I don’t know if they only had $2,375 to give away or have been sitting on much more since that time.

It would seem that a Washington woman is taking the ammunition supply problems a little too hard.

Clallam County Undersheriff Ron Peregrin said Teresa Nadine Dumdie of Port Angeles threatened four other customers with a .22 caliber handgun at 4:54 p.m. Friday outside the store at 3500 E. U.S. Highway 101.

No one was injured.

Peregrin said Dumdie had argued with customers in the store after they had asked her to stop cursing and yelling at an employee.

He said she was upset with the employee, saying she had sold her the wrong kind of ammunition.

After she received her refund, she walked out to the parking lot, removed a gun from her car and confronted the customers she had argued with earlier inside the store, Peregrin said.

Threatening staff and customers is generally not the best way to resolve customer service woes. It’s also likely to be a fast track to losing that gun so you’ll never have to worry about buying ammunition again.

In the gun issue, many gun owners are quick to demonize the media without a second thought. I don’t completely blame anyone for a healthy dose of cynicism, but sometimes I wonder where it’s coming from and whether it’s appropriate.

Yesterday, SayUncle noticed that his knowledge of laws didn’t mesh with what an article in the Nashville City Paper claimed on the topic of guns where alcohol is served. The reporter claimed “extensive legal research” provided by a law firm that was hired to challenge the law. Uncle requested the research from the reporter and then I saw Rustmeister’s decidedly cynical comment assuming that Uncle would likely never receive the research at all, even referring to the research in scare quotes. Why assume the worst in this case? I responded that folks should have a little faith, alternative papers are often very reliable for demanding evidence.

But that got me thinking about the deeply rooted hatred for the media that many gun owners have. Many are willing to burn the bridge with reporters without a second thought. Why is that? (I might add that the reporter did send Uncle the data.) Do gun owners seek to live in a world where they truly believe that everyone is out to get them? Or would we be better off balancing a healthy cynicism that only a few people are out to get us with an understanding that this is a complex issue that many people in and out of the media don’t get?

Obviously, I suggest the latter. Yes, the mainstream media is, in general, not friendly to our side of the gun issue. But, we also need to realize that many don’t really have much of an opinion about it or have an opinion that could be swayed to neutral with just a little friendly outreach. Why do some want to assume the worst and burn the bridges to those who we can sway? Does it just feel good? I don’t understand. I want to create a more gun-friendly media, and maybe not everyone shares that desire.

While I’m not saying that gun owners should turn the other cheek if there’s a bad article out there, here are a few things I think folks should consider before assuming the worst (and saying as much) about a reporter:

• Remember that not everyone knows guns.  It’s okay and not a cardinal sin of journalism to not know the ins and outs of every single issue.  (Remember, in the days of bigger newsrooms, journalists could specialize much more than they do now.)
• Remember that on the legal side, the gun issue is extremely complex.  Many lawyers don’t understand the complexities in various local, state, and federal gun laws unless they have spent their careers studying gun laws specifically.  We’ve all known other gun owners who get these details wrong, we can’t expect that every reporter is going to get it right all the time, either.
• The fundamental question one should be asking is whether or not the reporter was fair to the issue or made an attempt to be.  Did they interview both sides?  If they didn’t, were they upfront about any potential biases?
• Consider the source.  Is the beef with a mainstream newspaper, local television station, web-only publication, national outlet, or alt-weekly?  I would expect more colorful language from some outlets than others, but that doesn’t inherently make one piece more biased.  (I expected a New England alt-weekly reporter who I took to a range to refer to me as a chick.  I did not expect to see the same term to be applied after an interview with the New York Times.)  What about the perceived wrong bothers you, and is it something appropriate or inappropriate to the source?
• Don’t treat reporters like shit.  I can’t tell you how many gun owners I’ve met who want to try and make reporters covering them feel unwelcome.  I’ve met a few who actively seek them out if they know they are at an event and try to make the most extreme and anger-filled arguments just to make them squirm.  Why?  What purpose does that serve?  Would they behave that way around a new shooter?  If they say no, then why treat the person next to them like that just because of their profession?  Just like being on your best behavior is required for reaching out to new shooters, you should act your best when journalists are around.  It’s simply the decent thing to do.  If you want to grow the community, the same rules apply.
• Finally, for a pet peeve, before someone starts off on the evils of reporters, make sure the person you’re referencing is actually a reporter.  Before saying an entire paper is outrageously biased in their coverage, folks need to double check the section of paper they are reading.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ll see someone bitching about how biased reporters are or a paper is when they are linking to an op-ed or a columnist.  It’s not a matter of reporting bias if it’s not in the news section.  It’s not inherently a sign of editorial bias if it’s not one of the paper’s unsigned editorials.  (There are other factors here, but the point is just to double check what section you’re reading.)

Going back to the specific case with Nashville’s City Paper, there’s significant room for improvement, but I don’t think the reporter deserved denunciation or assumptions of the worst based on this particular article.  In this case, before the data was even sent there were a few folks pointing out that there were different interpretations of the law that could have stumped the reporter.  Looking at what the law firm compiled, I believe that’s the case based on the laws in the list I do know.  Perhaps more importantly, the reporter did make clear that the firm providing the data was working on a legal challenge to the new law in Tennessee.

In all, I think it’s time to stop throwing all members of the media under the bus in our movement.  We shouldn’t seek to burn bridges that don’t need to be burned.  It’s fine if there is a true sin and bias is far beyond any limits of reasonable understanding, but we should take a moment to ask whether it does cross those limits.  If it doesn’t, try a bit of honey instead of vineagar.  If you make an effort to educate, you could easily find yourself becoming a source to answer future questions the next time the subject comes up.

Obama voters are exactly the people we need to reach, which makes this unfortunate:

Thirteen-year-old Lane Dunkley just wanted to go hunting with his grandfather.
What he got was a lecture on politics.

[...]

But when father and son arrived at the lesson, the volunteer instructor, Kell Wolf, asked if any of the students voted for President Barack Obama.

Reddy, a transplanted Californian — and former Marine — raised his hand.

According to Reddy and others in the room, Wolf called Obama “the next thing to the Antichrist” and ordered Reddy and Dunkley from the room. When Reddy refused, Wolf said he would not teach “liberals” and would cancel the course if Reddy didn’t leave.

So Reddy and Dunkley left, as did a few others.

I can sympathize.  People who fled California because because the state has been made difficult to live or do business in, who vote for a guy who wants to make every corner of America just like California?  It’s frustrating.  There’s dozens of places today that are facing this phenomenon, and the natives are the ones who suffer for it.

But what if Lane Dunkley discovered he really enjoyed hunting with Grandad.  What if Grandad, likely being a native Oklahoman, could have perhaps talked some sense into the boy on a hunting trip?  The only way to make people interested in preserving your way of life is to make them understand it, and you can’t do that by excluding outsiders from it.  I understand how Kell Wolf is feeling, but he’s being short sighted.  The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation did the right thing.

It’s for sure now.  The Des Moines register is reporting it.

“This was completely blown out of proportion,” Kohorst said. “They were going to come through and meet with the townspeople and just practice going in and out of their homes. They were never, ever going to confiscate guns or anything like that.”

I agree that it was blown way out of proportion.  The Mayor seems to not quite understand the objections to the exercise.

Talk show host Alex Jones of Austin, Texas, whose syndicated radio program is carried on about 60 stations, said he had received phone calls on and off the air from people in Arcadia and nearby towns who objected to the plans.He said he believes oil companies, in concert with central banks, are creating a worldwide economic crisis to set up a world government.

“This is part of an acclimation for martial law,” Jones said of the National Guard’s plans.

If that’s his paranoia, I don’t understand it either.  There are certainly good reasons to object to the military using civilian communities in exercises, but that it’s part of an internationalist conspiracy is not among them.

Company A is an infantry unit that served in Afghanistan for 13 months in 2004 and 2005, and it is expected to receive orders to return overseas within the next 24 months, Hapgood said.

OK, so I was wrong about one thing.  They were training for Afghanistan rather than Iraq, as I speculated over the weekend.

“We have been doing training in our communities for decades, so this is very routine business for us,” Hapgood said. “We were quite surprised when we received e-mails from out of state criticizing the event. We have a responsibility to have our men and women ready to go into combat, and we are not going to change that.”

Well, that’s what they’re saying now, of course.  After the paranoidosophere blew the lid on their secret plans, what else are they going to say?

A man who described himself as a “Nevada citizen” wrote that it was good the exercise was called off: “It is possible that there would have been some dead Iowa Guardsmen.”

Way to win hearts and minds, good citizen of Nevada!

This is not an example of how to do it:

Michael Guzman, a senior at Texas State University and president of the grassroots gun group called “Students for Concealed Carry on Campus,” is worried that the two issues will be “muddled” together by the media once the respective bills are filed, causing confusion among lawmakers and regular Texans.

Plus, there appears to be another element causing tension between the members of SCCC and the Virginia-based group OpenCarry.org — one of competing interests.

“If these open carry guys get enough attention with the introduction of their bill, it’s going to knock off our bill,” Guzman said. “Our biggest obstacle is another gun rights group. It’s ridiculous that two gun rights groups are going to be canceling each other out.”

Guzman’s concern is a legitimate one, but that’s not something that’s a good idea to go expressing to the media.  If they understand that gun groups are divided on the issue, you can expect a divide and conquer approach from our opponents, which is a pretty effective tactic.  To some degree, it’s much harder to hide these kinds of priority disagreements now than it has been in the past, but I think we ought to try to keep it relegated to the back waters of Al Gore’s Internets (like this place).

I think changing both laws would be a good thing for Texas, but there might only be room for one pro-gun bill this year.  I won’t toss my 2 cents in as to which it should be.  That’s for Texans to figure out.

Congressman Broun of Georgia is warning of an Obama dictatorship:

Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military.

“That’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did,” Broun said. “When he’s proposing to have a national security force that’s answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he’s showing me signs of being Marxist.”

Obama needs to invoke Godwin here and declare victory.  I’m not exactly in favor of Obama’s plan for national indentured servitude of young people, but can we dispense with the fear mongering and start worrying about why large numbers of Republican voters stayed home this election?   Can we start worrying about why young people are increasingly lost to Republican candidates?   Obama won.  Get over it.  He’s not going to be the moderate centrist people are hoping for, but he’s also not going to be Hitler or Joe Stalin either.  I can promise you I won’t like what’s coming, but right now we have to worry about being strong opposition, not floating paranoid theories about brownshirts.  I expect to find that kind of crap coming from obscure web sites and blogs (you know, like this one), not from the mouth of a United States Congressman.

… 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.

Only this time, electorally:

That’s right.  Some gun owners they talked to who are aware enough about the situation to know that they need to stock up now before Obama could make it harder to buy guns, and they are voting for him anyway because they want to mooch off of someone else and not have to pay for their own healthcare.

It’s more common than you think.  Bitter tells about what happened when a guy wearing an Obama button tried to buy a gun at a gun show we were working.  We have no enemy that is greater than ourselves.  That’s why NRA-PVF’s slogan is “Vote Freedom First.”   Many gun owners don’t, and that’s why we continually vacillate between gain and loss.

Everyone who knows gun club politics knows people like this:

The annual machine gun show is advertised as a free-for-all for gun enthusiasts, and has created discord among some club members, said longtime club member Bob Greenleaf.

“To let an 8-year-old boy fire an Uzi is the height of stupidity,” said Greenleaf.

Greenleaf, a member of the club for 44 years, was so opposed to the annual machine gun shoot that he resigned from the club’s board of directors four years ago.

What really tweaks me about this asshole is, you know he called the media.  They didn’t dig him up.  He called the media to announce to the world that “I was right!  It’s dangerous!”  Club politics are not something that need to be acted out in the newspapers, especially in response to an tragic accident that could very well endanger the club itself, and by association, the entire shooting culture in Western Massachusetts.

Machine gun shoots are not inherently dangerous, and this event has happened several times a year for years with no problems, as do hundreds of events around the country. This absolutely should prompt clubs that host machine gun shoots to review their safety procedures.  Once the investigation is complete, and we know more about how this incident happened, we’ll be able to determined what needs to be changed.  I support parents being free to make decisions about teaching their children to shoot, but if this really was an Uzi, that’s not an appropriate firearm for an eight year old.

When I was taught how to fire a machine pistol, I started out with firing in semi-auto mode, to get used to the recoil.  Then fill the magazine with two rounds, then three, then start out learning how to burst the trigger.  It’s not until you get used to it that you should try to dump a full magazine.  I’m not against kids shooting guns, not even against them shooting machine guns provided they are given appropriate instruction and appropriately controllable firearms.  Machine pistols are difficult to control, even for an adults.  Someone had a tragic lapse in judgment.

UPDATE: More eating our own.  I have an idea.  Let’s wait for the police and ATF to investigate this, so we understand exactly what happened first.  Then we can come up with productive solutions for ensuring this never happens again.  Closing down the club is not in the space of “productive solutions.”

UPDATE: Now he’s speaking to news cameras.

… not make gun owners look like lunatics in the media for all to see?   You know what ends up happening when the majority of the people in this country who don’t own gun, and don’t care much about gun rights, start believing that gun owners are out to foment a civil war?   They start agreeing to take our guns away.

Some may want an armed revolution, but I don’t want to see it come to that.  It is not inevitable or necessary at this point in time.  I’d prefer to solve this problem politically, and guys like this aren’t helping.  We’re winning right now, both politically, and the hearts and minds.  Could we please not do stupid shit like this to fuck it up?  Thank you.

This isn’t going to help shut up Bloomberg:

NEW YORK (AP) — A South Carolina gun dealer who sued New York’s mayor for saying his shop engaged in “criminal behavior,” has asked judges in two states to put his case on hold so he can fight an unrelated criminal charge.

Licensed firearms dealer Larry Mickalis was indicted earlier this month on a charge that he illegally sold a rifle to an ex-convict two years ago at his pawn shop in Summerville, S.C.

The charge was a surprise development in the merchant’s ongoing legal battle with New York City, and his attorneys have now asked courts to freeze the civil litigation until the criminal case is resolved.

Recall that ATF was steamed that Bloomberg’s antics interfered with several ongoing federal investigations.   I’m guessing this was one of them.  Either way, this isn’t a good development.

I think it was originally proposed by Mike Adams:

For the record, I am opposed to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as a national holiday in the month of January or, for that matter, any other month. It isn’t that I oppose a national holiday celebrating the legacy of America’s greatest civil rights leader. I just don’t believe that King was our greatest civil rights leader. I believe that distinction belongs to John Browning.

Since John Moses Browning was born on January 23rd, 1855, it will be easy to make the transition from a Martin King to a John Browning national holiday. And it will be educational, too. Many gun owners are unaware that Browning sold 44 guns to Winchester including the Model 94 level action repeater. Guns based on the Model 94 design and chambered in 30-30 have probably killed more deer in North America than any other model before or since.

Now, I would not want to disparage John Browning’s stellar and unrivaled contributions to the design of the modern firearm, but I’m going to disagree with this, and suggest that this is one of the many ways gun rights advocates like to shoot themselves in the foot.

I strongly believe we need to keep gun rights in the main stream if we want the second amendment to be taken seriously, and for the right it protects to continue to be protected.  The more we look like a quirky subculture, and less like neighbors, friends, and co-workers, and other upstanding community members, the less ordinary folks are going to care about our rights when the politicians come for them.

Suggesting that Martin Luther King Day be replaced with John Moses Browning Day is one of those things that makes people look at us and think “Those people are nuts.”  We also don’t need to reinforce the negative stereotype of gun owners as being racists with this kind of crap.  I’m in favor of Martin Luther King Day remaining Martin Luther King Day.  I would not oppose a John Browning Day, but let’s not fan the flames of racial resentment by suggesting it replace a holiday that’s important to a lot of Americans.

Sandy Abrams got 5 years for firearms trafficking.   The big difference between the anti-gun folks and us, is we’ll air our dirty laundry, where they prefer to sweep it under the rug:

In the Parkville case this year, Baltimore County police charged Abrams, saying in court papers that the sale was illegal because customer Keith J. Showalter had a criminal record that prevented him from owning a gun legally and because such gun sales are supposed to be reported to the Maryland State Police.

Police responding to a call from Showalter’s estranged girlfriend on Feb. 18, 2007, fatally shot him after he refused to surrender and fired seven rounds from a military-style rifle at the officers, according to police.

As part of their investigation, police say they also found an illegal machine gun in Abrams’ custody during a search of his property.

The Brady Campaign will no doubt be savoring this.

This guy has to have hit over at least half of the stereotypes of gun owners in this incident. Folks, if you’re going to drive your dirt bike drunk, and without headlights, don’t sling your MP5 over your shoulders and put your beer on the handlebars. Of course:

The weapon was an MP-5 semi-automatic sub-machine gun, fully loaded, and was slung across his back, according to Officer David McIntyre of the Ashville Police Department. The suspect also had a six-pack of beer hanging from a sack off the handlebars of the dirt bike.

We do have to get some sloppy reporting. If it’s semi-automatic, how exactly is it a machine gun?

By sticking up for the second amendment rights of violent criminals. There are good poster children for why our current “prohibited person” statutes are overly broad. There are good poster children for the fact that the government has criminalized virtually everything, including making things like importing lobsters in plastic bags instead of cardboard boxes, a felony.

Sean Taylor is not in either of those two categories. Thanks Larry, with friends like this, who needs enemies?

UPDATE: I think it’s a reasonable argument to make that someone so dangerous they can’t be trusted with a firearm ought to be in jail. But the fact is, we let dangerous people out of jail. That they should be in jail rather than roaming the streets is a reasonable thing to argue, but is a separate issue from the second amendment. There are definitely prohibited people out there who don’t deserve to be prohibited, and I think our current laws cast way too broad a net, but someone charged with threatening with a firearm and aggravated assault, that plead down to misdemeanor battery, is not someone I’d go before the public with as an example. To me, for a pro-gun leader to do that doesn’t help the cause, and would do more to turn people off to the second amendment than bring people over to our side.

UPDATE: Here’s the WaPo article from the time:

According to a police report, Taylor and a co-defendant, Charles Elwood Caughman, 19, of Baltimore, drove up to a residence in a blue 2005 GMC Yukon Denali sport-utility vehicle and Taylor pointed a gun at two individuals he believed had stolen two all-terrain vehicles from him and demanded they be returned. No shots were fired and Taylor and Caughman left the scene before returning 10 minutes later.

At this point, police say Taylor, whom the team lists as 6 feet 2, 231 pounds, exited the vehicle and began assaulting one victim, swinging and missing with a closed fist before a fight ensued. Caughman, who was arrested and charged with aggravated assault on the night of the incident, chased the other victim with a baseball bat before he and Taylor fled the scene, according to the police report. The incident took place less than two miles from Taylor’s residence in Miami.

Under these circumstances, the two victims would have been justified legally in shooting Sean Taylor and  Charles Elwood Caughman dead where they stood.  Do you want these two being used to help promote the second amendment?

Bitter seemed to not be having fun at the NRA range in Fairfax yesterday.  I was happy to find out she wasn’t looking pissed off because of me.  I tend to refer to loud mouth know it alls on the range as “range assholes”, and I tend to ignore them so I can get my shooting done.   I knew I was next to one of these types, but Bitter noticed the certificates that would indicate he was an actual instructor, there with a student.

A bit of background.  Bitter is an NRA certified instructor herself, who, like most other NRA certified instructors is very good at helping introduce new shooters into the shooting sports, or teach people interested how to safely employ a firearm in self-defense.  But there are bozos out there who manage to go through the instructor certification coursework, and head out into the world to ensure that people who are curious, and need a little guidance, never again want to touch a firearm in their lives.

I wasn’t paying as much attention to the bozo as Bitter was, because I had shooting that needed to be done.  But when she told me exactly what he had been telling, and doing, with his student, I was appalled. As evangelists for the shooting sports, but we have a great interest in driving the assholes out of the business of instructing.  So I will offer to anyone, that if you ever have a bad experience with an NRA certified instructor, let me know.  I will be happy to assist you in making sure other folks out there are aware of your experience.  The vast majority of  instructors are fine people who are good at what they do, but I’m very much interested in getting the bad apples out of the bushel, before they spoil the whole bunch.  It’s only by getting more people interested in shooting that we’ll win this in the long run.

Not much going on in the pro-gun world today, but if you’d like to take a gander at the kind of infighting that is going to seriously hold back our cause, take a look at the PA Firearms Owners Association forum for the latest example.

Disagreement in our movement is inevitable, because if there’s one thing we all have, it’s an opinion. As pissy as I might get at some pro-gun groups sometimes, when I think they are right, I will cheer them to the high hill. When I think they are wrong, I will say that too. But we’re all on the same side, albeit with different public voices and different levels of intensity.

I have my disagreements with some of the pro-gun groups here in Pennsylvania, but I appreciate the work they do. When I hear pro-gun people on our state decrying these groups, seemingly upset that they are building invaluable relationships with state legislators, I get very very worried, because those kinds of relationships are how you get things done in politics. Grassroots do matter, because the ability to deliver votes is what makes a politician pay attention to you, but you need leadership, and you need those legislative relationships if you want to get anything done.

JPFO has picked up on the Joaquin Jackson thing. I have a long standing policy of not supporting groups that attack other pro-gun groups, so I was disappointed to see this:

It’s time to “Humiliate and Repudiate” Joaquin Jackson and the NRA. Go to http://www.jpfo.org/handbill-joaquin.jpg to see our latest handbill. Print it out and distribute it to those who still believe the NRA is working in the interest of gun owners. They are not.

Seriously, that’s not going to help anything. Going after Joaquin Jackson for what he said was fine, but undermining other pro-gun groups and promoting the fragmentation of the movement help no one. JPFO has done good work, especially with exposing abuses by the ATF, but I won’t donate or join groups that are actively trying to divide the movement. There’s no surer way to lose, and you can bet the Brady’s love this kind of stuff.

UPDATE: I should clarify here. I’m not suggesting that any group that’s not NRA is part of the problem. Nor am I suggesting that having groups aside from the NRA isn’t important. But NRA is hugely important, despite its flaws. Other groups need to figure out where they can make the biggest contribution to the fight. JPFO had the right idea with The Gang, because NRA has too high a profile in Washington to publicly make war on a federal agency, and last time they tried, it backfired in a big big way. That’s exactly the kind of contribution smaller groups can make. But what smaller groups should not do is try to compete with NRA, or try to undermine it by encouraging people to get angry with them and support their groups instead. That doesn’t mean NRA is above criticism, or reproach, but when we undermine it, it undermine our gun rights as a whole.

UPDATE: Ahab has more.

When engaging in advocacy in public, particularly in places where you’re not around other gun people, but are around the general public, it’s importnat to remember SayUncle’s wisdom, and stay away from the crazy stuff.   From the Brady Blog, I noticed some people linked to this.

Now, you and I both know JPFO puts out stuff like this all the time, but if I showed this to any of my coworkers, they’d say “That’s totally nuts.  It’s disgusting.”   Most people aren’t going to get that a Jewish gun rights organization put a lot of that stuff out there.   It’s going to get spun as “The gun nuts are using the holocaust to push their political agenda.” by the other side.

So think before you post stuff.   Don’t think how your buddies at the gun club would take it.   Think about how ordinary non-gun people you work with would take it.  Our goal is to educate, not to shock people, and the imagery on that web page are shocking.  I do think it’s important to point out that gun control enables genocide, but be careful how you go about it.  It’s one thing to link to JPFO directly, but we have to be very careful about using their stuff outside of their context.

Bitter beat me to the story about State Representative Jewell Williams recieving a death threat from someone near Allentown. I sincerely hope that they find the guy and get him off the streets. This is not someone we need on our side. Here’s the story:

For protection, State Rep. Jewell Williams packs a .38-caliber revolver in his North Philadelphia district and while traveling to Harrisburg.But a threatening e-mail he received yesterday has him considering a further precaution: dusting off an old bulletproof vest stored for the last seven years in his closet.

The e-mail, sent by a man Williams identified as a resident of Allentown, said Williams should be shot while in the Capitol. …

“Now that I hear this attitude of people recommending lynching, I’ll probably be wearing my gun more and possibly wearing my bulletproof vest, because we now think we’re being threatened,” Williams, a former police officer, said yesterday at a news conference calling for tighter gun laws.

Jewell Williams is a grade A bozo, and hypocrite for calling for tougher gun laws that would disarm you and me while he himself is carrying a firearm for self-protection. Who elects people who think like this?

But threatening Williams is reprehensible. I support William’s right to carry a firearm to defend himself. I really do wish he’d support mine. One bit of advise for Representative Williams, though. Body armor has a limited shelf life, I think along the lines of five years. If that vest has been sitting in the closet for a while, it’s probably better to buy some new gear. The old stuff will probably still stop a bullet, according to its rating, but it’s not a good idea to take chances if the vest is beyond the manufacturers expiration date. Get a new one!

This is one for the “How Not to Win Column”:

HARRISBURG — A sign waved at a gun supporters’ rally Tuesday outraged lawmakers who interpreted it as suggesting the lynching of a Philadelphia legislator and said they would report the incident to police as a death threat.

Two men stunned onlookers by raising the banner criticizing Democratic Rep. Angel Cruz, sponsor of a bill that would create a registry of gun owners and require people to pay a yearly $10 fee for each gun or face state police confiscation of their weapons. Cruz should be “hung from the tree of liberty for treasonous acts against the Constitution,” the sign read.

Are you friggin kidding me?  Look, I’m against the gun registration as much as anyone, and I’d like nothing more than to see Cruz pay a political price for it.  But let’s get real here.  The proper remedy for a politician going against their political oath is to throw them out of office, not to suggest they ought to be hanged.  This just makes us look insane.

The sign was “over the top,” Cruz said, but he said attendees had a right to express their opinions. He said people outside of Philadelphia don’t understand what it’s like in a city where “five or six killings” happen a day.

In the rest of Pennsylvania, “they don’t hunt human beings like they do in Philadelphia,” said Cruz, whose bill is before the House Judiciary Committee.

Imagine that.  Lots of guns, and we don’t kill each other.   Maybe Philadelphia has a criminal problem rather than a gun problem?

Republican Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, of Cranberry, a strong supporter of gun owners’ rights who helped organize the rally, said the sign contained “horrible statements” that had no place in a conversation about politics and policy. The people involved did not represent the event organizers, he said.

Geez guys, you even pissed off Daryl Metcalfe!   He’s one of the staunchest supporters of gun rights in the legislature.

“The overwhelming majority of gun owners are not criminals. …They are not madmen, and they shouldn’t be treated as such. They’re hunters and sportsmen,” said Rep. Jesse White, a Democrat who represents portions of Washington, Beaver and Allegheny counties.

He’s right.  It’s a pity a few bozos had to suggest otherwise.