Posts Tagged ‘Brady Bunch’

Brady Campaign Continues Slide Into Irrelevancy

March 20, 2010

It sure seems as though the hoplophobe’s have degenerated into what we in the medical field call suicidal  ideation. I mean really?

Once many years ago, while down at Denver General Hospital, some high power super Doc proceeded to chew on my butt because I was reading a hunting magazine in the driveway to the Emergency Department and it had, OH MY GOD!, a picture of a gun on the cover!

That friends, is a person that suffers from mental illness. As noted above… Anyways, right about then a D.G. crew brought in a bad guy that had a few well deserved holes in him. Seems a Denver Cop did what Cops do when confronted with deadly force. But like the better than thou Super Doc said; “Guns are only for killing and never do anyone any good!” Yeah… Right Doc!

But I digress, as usual… read on.

The notion that lemmings deliberately hasten their demise by rushing into the sea may be a myth, but the anti-Second Amendment group and its spokesmen really are scurrying through a series of blunders that may hasten their steady march to irrelevancy.

In 2008, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the group’s two theories about the Second Amendment were rejected by the Supreme Court, one of them by five justices and the other by all nine. In 2009, they tried, with no success, to frighten America about tourists carrying guns for protection in national parks.

This year, they’ve insulted their most powerful ally, President Obama, for not setting aside the economy, the war, and his social agenda to push for gun control legislation Congress does not support. They’ve given the states their worst “Brady grades” ever, even though violent crime continues to decrease. And, they’ve badgered the Starbucks coffee company for allowing customers to legally carry firearms in its stores.

This week, though, Brady lawyer Dennis Henigan—the world’s most prolific advocate of the legal theories the Supreme Court sent to the shredder two years ago—further diminished the group’s credibility by claiming “The evidence is overwhelming that the ‘shall-issue’ concealed carry laws have been a disaster for public safety. . . . [T]he scholarly research shows that the laws generally have been ‘associated with uniform increases in crime.'”

If he had just pushed himself away from the computer after his first four words, he would have been much better off. There’s “evidence,” all right, and it’s certainly “overwhelming.” Today, there are 36 states with “shall issue” laws—an all-time high. Sixty-three percent of Americans live in “shall issue” states, five million Americans have carry permits, and two states don’t even require a permit to carry concealed.

“Uniform increases in crime”? The nation’s violent crime rate is at a 35-year low.

Since adopting “shall issue” laws, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia have had decreases in violent crime ranging from 26 to 53 percent.

Henigan also claimed to have 33,000 signatures on his anti-Starbucks online petition, which can be signed by anyone with a computer anywhere in the world. But in a country of five million carry permit holders, up to 80 million gun owners, and 300 million people, Brady’s petition and $1.70 will get you …

SOURCE

The Brady Bunch losers verses Starbucks!

February 5, 2010
Maybe Brady Campaign Should Switch To Decaf
Friday, February 05, 2010
The hand-wringers at the Brady Campaign must have figured out what the rest of us have known for quite some time.  Having been rendered all but entirely irrelevant, at least for the time being, the group is resorting to weird publicity stunts, in a vain attempt to again be taken seriously by its former not-so-secret admirers in the national anti-gun news media.

Last month, the group gave President Obama an “F” for “failed leadership” on gun control, accusing him of “squandering” the opportunity to push for tighter gun control laws.  Now it’s attacking Starbucks for allowing people to carry firearms in its stores as provided for by state law.

Get this doozie:  “It’s everyone’s right to sit in a restaurant or coffee shop with their families without intimidation or fear of guns,” the Brady Campaign says, in its modern rendition of FDR’s famous “freedom from fear” quote.

Not surprisingly, while the Brady Campaign easily fabricates a “right” to feel free from fear, it angrily scoffs at the right to self-protection by encouraging its minions to sign a petition demanding that Starbucks establish a gun policy more restrictive than state law.  “I demand that Starbucks stand up for the safety of its customers and prohibit guns in your [sic] retail establishments,” the petition reads.

A call to Starbucks has confirmed what was pretty obvious on its face.  The company is in the business to sell coffee, not jump in the middle of a Brady-generated squabble that state law has already resolved in favor of the right to carry firearms, in certain circumstances.  Starbucks also isn’t in business to help Brady get its name in the paper.

The Brady Campaign’s resorting to this kind of silliness is understandable.  It was once the most influential anti-gun group in town, able to claim some of the “credit” for the temporary imposition of the federal handgun waiting period between 1994 and 1998 and the federal “assault weapon” ban between 1994 and 2004.

But in recent years it has experienced the longest losing streak in gun control history.  The waiting period has expired in favor of the instant check system.  The 1994 gun ban has expired.  The number of Right-to-Carry states has continued to rise.  The list goes on, at the federal, state and local level.  And the group’s core arguments about the Second Amendment were rejected entirely by the Supreme Court in the Heller case.  President Obama even signed bills into law which included provisions allowing the carrying of firearms in national parks according to state law, and protecting the sale of surplus military ammunition components to the private sector.

And today, the media’s gun control darling is not the Brady Campaign’s leader, former Fort Wayne, Indiana mayor Paul Helmke, who spends his time blogging about gun control on the Huffington Post website, where members on the fringe gather to rant about mainstream America.  Today, the leader of the gun control movement is billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who spends his time (and money) as mayor of America’s most influential city.

Gun owners who like coffee ought to drop Starbucks a line and respectfully encourage the company to stay above the fray into which anti-gun activists are trying to drag them.  Click here to do so.  As for the Brady Campaign, let’s hope things continue at the present rate.  If they do, before too long we’ll have to explain who the group was, before it was forced to close its doors for lack of interest.

SOURCE