Dennis Henigan and Grassroots

Dennis "I forgot the people" Henigan is whining that the big bad gun lobby is trying to 'bury' his book in the reviews over at Amazon. Let's take a look at some of the 5 star reviews for him:

M. Wolkowitz: Might this be Michael Wolkowitz, the Brady Campaign chairman?

G. Dix: Might this be Griffon Dix of the CA MMM?

Frank W. Brunotts: Former president of the defunct Contra Costa Ceasefire and longtime gun control activist.

Gregory J. Jaskolka: Director Brady Campaign DE chapter.

Casey Anderson: Former employee of Horowitz's CSGV and co-author of her own anti-gun book.

"MidWest Book Review": I've yet to find anything other than a 5 star from their thousands of 'reviews'.

So out of their 16 5 star reviews, at least 5 are from professional gun control activists. Three of which are Brady employees. None of them acknowledged their connections.

Another 5 star is from a 'reviewer' that gives nothing but 5 stars.

There's your gun control 'grassroots' in action.

Armed and Safe and SIH have more.

Aiming for Liberty

David Kopel's new book is now available for sale on Amazon. I was privileged enough to have received an early copy. A most excellent and well researched read.

SIH has various editorials on the book if you would like a preview.

Awakenings...

No, not the Robin Williams movie but more and more members of the citizenry when it comes to firearm ownership. I received messages from two people yesterday. Here's the text of the first one:

I'd like to get some info from you about rules & laws in the People's Republic of Illinois.

Also - what can I do to join the NRA?

Do you have any recommendations for me when it comes to my first purchase?

I know, I'm behind...after XX years in the Army, you think I'd own more than just the rifle, which my dad gave me two years ago, and was his when he was a teen-ager! But, Ft. Hood has got me moving in the right direction again.

This is going along w/ looking into obtaining a non-resident CCW for when he's traveling.

The second was a series if IM's from an old High School friend now living in FL. Her fiancee went and purchased a Remington 870 Tactical because he's concerned about the way the country is going. He used to own a gun but had sold it some time ago. He plans on taking my friend to a range to make sure she knows how to use it as well since she's just as concerned.

I'm positive this will be the first of many purchases for all of them.

So while this is still anecdotal, it presents even more evidence that the surge in firearm sales that's lasted the last year and still going strong isn't just a bunch of right wing extremist racist tea-bagging militia gun nuts buying their 50th or 100th gun but 'regular' folks realizing that what we 'gun nuts' have been saying may not be so 'nutty' after all. These people are then getting guns for their SO's and talking to their friends and families.

It's unfortunate that it takes events like Ft Hood, Katrina and/or National instability to get people to understand what we have been saying but at least some good is coming out of it. When things improve and the world calms down a little, many of these individuals will lose much of the zeal they have now but most of them will still be firearm owners. Then, when 'gun control' groups and ignorant politicians try and get laws passed putting more restrictions on them (the owners) and that don't effect criminals in any way, there will be even less support for these measures.

Joyce Foundation says NRA = Terrorists.

Kurt Hoffman points to the Joyce's paid mouthpiece, Mark Karlin, calling for the NRA to be labeled as a 'terrorist organization'.

I'm delighted by this as this has been the rallying cry of ineffectual anti-gun trolls for quite some time. That the organization that dumps millions of dollars every year into anti-gun campaign has resorted to this cry of desperation shows the reality of where they stand in influence.

The Perfect Xmas Gift

Florida: Firearms remain big sellers, increasing into the holidays

The season's real present may go to the gun dealers, many of them still counting the post election profits of an "Obama rush" that saw shoppers stockpiling in case a new administration banned firearms. As other businesses hope for the year's low sales to turn around with the holidays, firearms dealers say they're simply waiting for their revenue to shoot even higher.

MAIG Mayor Convicted

MAIG Mayor Shiela Dixon has moved from being indicted to convicted.

What was she convicted of?

Stealing gift cards meant to go to the poor.

As of 12/1, she is still proudly listed as one of Mayor Bloomburg's 450 (or whatever number they're currently claiming)

No Endorsement for You.

IL Gov. candidate Jim Ryan claimed he had been endorsed by the NRA and ISRA in the 2002 election. Turns out, not so much. He WAS endorsed by the NRA w/ a grade of 'B+' but his claim of and ISRA endorsement turned out to be false:

The ISRA-PVF is today calling upon Illinois gubernatorial candidate Jim Ryan to retract claims that he received the group's endorsement during his failed 2002 run for governor against Rod Blagojevich. Such misleading claims have surfaced on Ryan's social networking internet sites in recent days. Additionally, individuals have made reports to the ISRA-PVF that Ryan campaign staffers have made similar endorsement claims when questioned about Ryan's stands on issues important to law-abiding Illinois firearm owners.

Oops.

Ryan's staffers reply on FB:

Jim Ryan for Illinois Governor Our campaign staffers in 2002 recalled working closely with ISRA on several issues and remembered being endorsed. If we erred in our recollection, we apologize. We have deep respect for gun owners in Illinois and for the ISRA. We look forward to working with them in the governor's office, with or without an endorsement.

Well that's covered in the article as well.

"Some things never change," commented ISRA-PVF spokesman Richard Pearson. "The Ryan campaign's habit of bending the truth is one of them. In 2002 we heard them lie about why Ryan wasn't endorsed by us, now we hear them lie about receiving our endorsement. The truth is that firearm owners had no reason to vote for Ryan in 2002, and they certainly do not have any reason to vote for him in 2010."

I Support The 2A but......

I was pointed to Il Gov. Candidate Jim Ryan's FB page by a loyal reader where Ryan has published his stock reply to any questions about supporting firearm rights:

A number of people here have asked for my position on the issue of the 2nd Amendment. I am pro-Second Amendment and in 2002 I was endorsed by the NRA/ISRA in my run for Governor. As a lifetime prosecutor, I am persuaded by those in law enforcement who oppose concealed carry. I believe the main problem with gun violence is not the lack of new laws but the inadequate enforcement of existing gun statutes.

He must be talking to those in 'law enforcement' that are appointed by the Chicago machine and IACP since the Illinois Sheriff's Assoc. supports CCW overwhelmingly.

As usual, the citizens of Illinois are going to get screwed no matter who the GOP/DNC choose for office.

Nope, Not Just Me.

In a post last week, I'ld mentioned that I've seen a significant uptick in 'Rightwing Extremist Militia' type stories on TV shows and 9badly) made for TV movies. Kaveman then crawled out from under the trailer w/ a copy of the Jan. '04 edition of America's 1st Freedom that had an article, Advise and Decieve, about the Joyce Foundation funding a group whose purpose was to push for guns to be shown in a bad light in the media.

Let's take a look at some of the EIC's 'recomendations' on how they do this and some of the examples the article highlighted:

Recommendation: consider exploring a gun dealer's or gun supplier's remorse about the harm done by someone to whom he or she funished a firearm.

Example: In the movie Liberty Stands Still, a character played by Wesley Snipes threatens to murder a woman named Liberty Wallace, whose company manufactured the firearm used to kill Snipes' daughter. Snipes tells Liberty she can die a hero by revealing her company's dubious business practices and political affiliations; threatened w/ death, liberty attempts to reconcile her past "misdeeds".

Recommendation: Consider giving an account of a family's lawsuit against a gun dealer or manufacturer for supplying a gun that a criminal used to murder their loved one.

Example: Though John Grisham's book was about a juror attempting to barter a decision for cash in a tobacco lawsuit, the movie Runaway Jury is an anti-gun fairy tale focusing on a lawsuit brought by a widow against a gun manufacturer.

I've actually had a person cite that movie as factual in a debate.

Recommendation: Consider using gun safety posters in the background on appropriate sets.

Example: Though the Lethal Weapon series could rightly be described as the pinnacle of shoot-em-up cinema, Lethal Weapon 4 featured anti-NRA posters crowding the background in a scene inside a police station.

Recommendation: Demonstrate parents making gun safety inquiries of other households where their children visit, asking about storage, accessibility and so on.

The article does not list an example but I caught an episode of the short lived series "The Education of Max Bickford" where the main character, played by Richard Dreyfuss, forbade his son to play w/ a neighbor who lets the boys plink at cans.

There are multiple other 'Tips' made including showing 'cool' kids make negative remarks about guns, regurgitate Joyce Foundation provided statistics in scripts, etc.

Then there's also classic examples of movies and the media blatantly fabricating information about guns like the Glock 17 in Die Hard 2 being able to defeat airport screeners and a 'Teflon Bullet" in Lethal Weapon 3 (that series again) penetrating several inches of steel plating. All legal for sale to those accident prone civilians.

I bring this up again since the other night the wife turned on one of those truly awful ghost finding shows and the thing was set in an abandoned WWII era Remington Arms factory where a few people died in accidents (7 people were an 'epic' number of deaths) . The hosts kept going on and on about the 'hundreds of thousands of people' who died because of the products designed for death and all the 'negative' energy of the place. A question during an interview of a former employee.... "Was it like being in Hell working here?"

It didn't stay on long.

VPC Proving a Negative

The Violence Policy Center has released a ground breaking study that proves that there are no deaths by licensed Concealed Carry holders where there is no licensed concealed carry.

Another Joyce Foundation puppet group agrees:

“You really don’t hear about people using weapons on the streets to protect themselves from violent incidents."

Well, not in Illinois or Wisconsin you don't. It's different in the other 48 states.

Nevermind that Chicago the city that has a ban on handguns (unless you're a connected official), ban on 'assault weapons and full registration, has 5x the murder rate of the rest of the state.

I'm so glad that the Joyce Foundation continues to dump money into these groups. It keeps them from spending it with those that might actually have some effect.

H/T to Huffpo poster MolonLabe

Compare and Contrast: Kelo / Heller

Two relatively recent court cases, Kelo v New London and Heller v DC were both basically about the rights of the individual vs the rights/powers of the state.

The Kelo case basically ruled that the state can confiscate your property w/o compensation for whatever reason they see fit.

Heller ruled that the right of the individual to own firearms is not dependent on membership in a state militia.

Looking at the justices for the cases makes a stark contrast. All four judges who ruled against Heller also voted FOR state confiscation in Kelo. These would be Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer.

Two of the justices, Scalia and Thomas, voted for the rights of the individual in both cases. The other two dissenting Kelo justices, Rehnquist and O'connor, were replaced by Roberts and Alito for Heller and both supported the right of the individual.

The final vote? Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. He voted FOR the state in Kelo and against the state in Heller.

Since then, with McDonald v Chicago on the horizon, Souter has been replaced by another Statist, Sotomayor. No others are 'expected' to retire before the case and groups like the Brady Campaign are already conducting damage control in an expected loss.

What a difference 1 vote makes.

AG Holder: Due Process Not Necessary

In my previous posts of gun control advocates, legislators and administrators who think that due process is a thing of the past, I neglected to include one very important one.

Attorney General Holder:

Yes, we will support that legislation. It sems incongruous to me that we would bar certain people from flying on airplanes because they are on a terrorist watch list and yet we would still allow them to possess weapons. I think that the legislation that was initially proposed by the Bush administration was well concieved and we will continue to support that.

Still feel that "Hope and Change"?

Gun Control Groups Helping Catch Terrorists

With their attempts to ban semi-autos by deliberately confusing them w/ machine guns and the reports that you can buy high explosives at gun shows, they've inadvertently gotten the terrorists confused as well:

According to court documents, the chief suspect in that case — who was arrested Saturday — paid $20,000 cash to an undercover operative in July as a deposit on machine guns and shoulder-fired Stinger missiles, and traveled to Philadelphia last week to inspect the merchandise.

Dumb@sses.

"Suspected Terrorists" by the Numbers

With all the support by people perfectly willing to dump due process and deny rights to 'suspected' Terrorists, one only has to take a look at the wonderful history of the "No-Fly List" and the FBI Terrorist Watch List.

As of Nov. 2009, there are well over 1.3 million names on the list covering an alleged 400,000 unique individuals. 5% of those are US citizens or residents and 9% are on both lists according to the FBI.

There are 1,600 names suggested to it daily with over 20,000 added per month.

The qualifications to be put on the list? Classified. (Yet Hasan didn't)

An audit by the DoJ found a 35% error rate based on spot checks of names on the list.

A check on 216 known terrorists found 35 who were NOT on the lists.

A bill (H.R. 559) to create an Office of Appeals and Redress passed the house but has sat idle in the Senate since February (so it's dead).

Countless people, including Legislators, military personal, political activists and even Air Marshals and small children have been harassed, detained and/or had their lives disrupted due to being inaccurately associated with these lists.

Yet gun control activists like John Rosenthal, Rahm Emanual, AG Holder, MAIG Mayors (along with all the sheeple that think the line "Do you want Osama Bin Laden buying a gun?" is a quality argument) think we should put even more power behind these secret, error-laden lists.

Doesn't that make you just all warm and fuzzy inside?

What we're up against....

How do groups like the Brady Campaign manage to survive without Joyce Foundation Funding?
Why are there mayors that still think MAIG actually cares about 'illegal' guns?

Because of people like this:

Many people were worried about the Ft. Hood killer before the rampage, but because of knee-jerk laws passed with the support of the NRA, there was no legal way to stop him from buying a special cop-killer gun, bullets, and high-capacity magazines from Guns Galore in KILLeen, Texas. There was no "political correctness" here, just powerlessness under the law.

So I asked him what specific 'knee-jerk laws' he was talking about. The rambling response was thus:

Knee-jerk NRA weenie laws such as no sane background check for the purchase of weapons, as well as the deletion of records. Check out Ashcroft's record as AG.

He continued to repeat himself several times and threw in the the tried and true gun banner talking points:

As far as gun laws not being able to keep killers from getting guns that is also not true. If we had sane gun laws, instead of the current NRA-written system, we could keep at least legally-procured handguns out of the paws of people that shouldn't have guns.

Gun laws, lax enforcement of them, and lack of sane gun laws have everything to do with this killer getting a special cop-killer gun with cop-killer bullets and high-volume magazines.

And these people vote, write their congress-critters and letters to the editor based off of their ignorance.

Brady Bunch all but admits defeat

My my, this rhetoric is a bit toned down from pre-Heller days.



"The Supreme Court's opinion in Heller does not conflict with allowing states and localities to enact and enforce sensible gun laws that protect the public," said Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Center. "On the contrary, the Court spelled out that such laws are presumptively legal. The police groups and the Brady Center agree that the Court should maintain that position in McDonald."

When the Brady Bunch announced that they would be filing a Friend of the Court brief in the McDonald case "for neither side" we all knew that was a steaming pile of crap.
But the antis are telegraphing that they've already lost and are trying to salvage the shattering pieces of their existence any way they can.

I'd feel sorry for them if they weren't curb sucking maggots.

At least real maggots serve a usefull purpose in the grand scheme of things.

John Rosenthal and MAIG: Due Process Not Necessary

"The Second Amendment should NOT extend to convicted criminals and terrorists, suspected or otherwise. "

So he's officially on the record stating that Fundamental Civil Rights shouldn't apply to people the Gov't chooses to put on secret lists based off of suspicion alone.

According to him, even being under investigation is cause to have your rights removed.

Good thing he's on 'our side' as a gun owner and trap shooter.

He is, however in good company as Chief of Staff Rahm Emanual (among others in the Hope and Change administration ) feels the same way.



Not to mention the Bloomberg Coalition.



( I wonder how many of those names are accurate)

And we should trust these people why exactly?

Magic Numbers 251 58 38 891

251 Representatives
58 Senators
38 State Attorney Generals
891 State Legislators and elected officials

Those are the ones who have filed Amicus Briefs (so far) in McDonald v Chicago in support of getting rid of the handgun ban.

How many have or will filed in support of Chicago? Will the gun banners have to (falsely) claim 'more diversity' this time as well?

So how do you think employees of the Brady Campaign and VPC are feeling right now?

It comes as no surprise that neither the AG nor the Senators from IL signed on. A big thanks to those Legislators that did:

Representative Peter J. Roskam (IL-6, R)
Representative Deborah L. Halvorson (IL-11, D)
Representative Jerry F. Costello (IL-12, D)
Representative Judith B. Biggert (IL-13, R)
Representative Timothy V. Johnson (IL-15, R)
Representative Donald A. Manzullo (IL-16, R)
Representative Aaron J. Schock (IL-18, R)
Representative John M. Shimkus (IL-19, R)

Pamela Althoff, State Senate
Brad Burzynski, State Senate
Dan Cronin, State Senate
Kirk Dillard, State Senate
Dan Duffy, State Senate
Paul Froehlich, State Representative
William Haine, State Senate
Randall Hultgren, State Senate
Mike Jacobs, State Senate
John Jones, State Senate
David Kochler, State Senate
Chris Lauzen, State Senate
Kyle McCarter, State Senate
Bill Mitchell, State Representative
Brandon Phelphs, State Representative
Robert W. Pritchard, State Representative
David Reis, State Representative
Jim Sacia, State Representative
Ron Stephens, State Representative
Patrick Verschoore, State Representative

Ironic Ad Placement

Is It Just Me?

Besides the nonsense news articles on CNN et al about the supposed 'increase' in 'Militia's' and 'extremists', I've been noticing a number of similar storied movies and show episodes on TV.

One was a really bad direct to video (but I repeat myself) movie from 2000 called, in all its originality, "Militia" that's been played on cable several times over the last month or so. Lots of stereotypes, catch-phrases, and stock footage about rural white guys wanting to eliminate the US Gov't.

Last night I caught a 2008 episode of the show 'Criminal Minds' that portrayed a Waco-esque scenario complete with child molestation, dozens of AK's and explosives. A key line from the show:

"However his predecessor, Leo Cane, is doing a 17-year prison sentence. Apparently Libertarians do not like paying taxes."

No bias there, right?

It reminds me of the old Tom Hanks film "Mazes and Monsters" that was produced back in the early 80's when the media was telling everyone that D&D made you crazy and go kill yourself while worshiping da debbil. We all know how accurate those reports were.

Update: A commenter on FB said this weeks NCIS LA also had a 'Militia' episode and Kaveman notes in comments that the NRA did an article a while back on the Joyces funding a group the encourages the media to show guns in a bad light.