Posts Tagged ‘NRA/ILA’

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Right To Hunt And Fish Amendments Adopted In Three States

November 7, 2010

 

Voters in Tennessee, Arkansas, and South Carolina made a powerful statement on Tuesday by overwhelmingly voting to include National Rifle Association-backed constitutional amendments to protect America’s great, ages-old heritage of hunting and fishing as state constitutional rights.

“The voters have spoken and they have sent a very clear message to anti-hunting groups like the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and PETA: You and your extremist agendas are not welcome in my state,” said NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris Cox. “NRA will continue to lead efforts to pass these amendments across the nation. We must be vigilant because even as we get more sportsmen’s groups to join us in the fight, extremists are pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into anti-hunting campaigns.”

Tennessee’s Amendment received 90 percent of the vote, followed by South Carolina with 89 percent and Arkansas with 82 percent. The voters in these states appreciate that sportsmen are today’s true conservationists, as their license fees and excise taxes paid on equipment fund the vast majority of wildlife and conservation efforts in the country. Both sportsmen and wildlife were undisputed winners on election night.

Right to Hunt and Fish constitutional amendments are a state-by-state priority for the NRA and will continue at a rapid pace, especially with more pro-Second Amendment and pro-hunting legislators being elected around the country. NRA’s model Right to Hunt and Fish constitutional language, developed over the past five years, has become the standard from which to negotiate with legislators and game and fish professionals. Thirteen states now have these important constitutional protections: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.

“Hunting is in America’s DNA. Indeed, it is as old as civilization itself,” concluded Cox. “NRA has long assumed a leadership role but we must all work together to ensure that every resident in every state is able to rest, knowing that their hunting heritage will be there for future generations.”

SOURCE

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Posted in Economics, Editorial, Opinion, Education, Hunting Fishing and the Great Outdoors, Law, News, Politics, States Rights, Uncategorized, Wordpress Political Blogs | 2 Comments »

“Nice Try, But No Cigar” For Brady Campaign’s Paul Helmke

September 25, 2010

“The NRA is wrong again,” said Brady Campaign president Paul Helmke on Tuesday, in his 176th (and counting) blog post on the left-wing Huffington Post website. Helmke was upset because of three things we pointed out in our annual “More Guns, Less Crime” fact sheet and Grassroots Alert last week.

First, the number of guns has risen to an all-time high. Second, for decades Brady Campaign has repeatedly predicted with unfettered confidence that more guns would necessarily cause crime to rise. But third, the nation’s violent crime and murder rates have instead fallen to 35- and 45-year lows, respectively.

Our fact sheet and alert didn’t say that crime has gone down because the number of guns has risen. And we didn’t even mention that crime has gone down in large part because in the 1990s many states adopted laws that NRA called for, to require violent criminals to spend time behind bars, to increase the length of violent criminals’ prison sentences, and to reduce their ability to obtain parole and probation (we’ll do that in next year’s fact sheet.  Thanks for the reminder, Paul).

All our fact sheet and alert pointed out was that, contrary to Brady Campaign predictions, an increase in guns didn’t cause crime to go up.

Nevertheless, Helmke whined, “The NRA is misleading again.”  The NRA is trying “to wave and shout and dance and steal the credit” for crime going down. NRA’s leaders “treat us as fools.”

Helmke didn’t deny that there is less crime. And he didn’t deny that there are more guns. Instead, he paraphrased some of Violence Policy Center’s hogwash, saying, “the average number of guns per owner has gone up, but the percent of American households with a gun? That’s right: it’s gone down.”

What Helmke didn’t mention is that polls measuring the percentage of households that acknowledge having at least one gun don’t accurately measure gun ownership by household or the number of Americans who own guns.

In its 1996 National Survey of Private Ownership of Firearms in the United States (NSPOF), the Police Foundation identified one of the limits of surveys attempting to measure gun ownership by household.

“For households headed by a married couple, 49 percent of the husbands report a gun in the home, compared with just 36 percent of the wives. Since this difference is far larger than can be explained by chance, it appears that many wives either do not know about their husband’s guns or are reluctant to discuss it with a stranger. The NSPOF estimates based on a respondent’s report of all guns in the household is 107.2 million working firearms. The NSPOF estimate based on a respondent’s report of his or her own firearms is 192.1 million working firearms.”

Similarly, criminologist Gary Kleck has noted that in his and Marc Gertz’s landmark survey of defensive firearm use, “50.1% of married men reported a household gun, but only 37.4% of married women did. . . . Fourteen consecutive General Social Surveys found married women to report household guns at lower levels than married men.”

Kleck added that a person is more likely to acknowledge that he or she own guns, than to acknowledge the ownership of guns by someone else in the household, but that while “it is most commonly a male who owns the household guns . . . . [M]arried women make up around 31% of the usual adult survey samples.”

Helmke also didn’t note (but Kleck did) that the percentage of people telling pollsters that they have guns in their homes dropped precipitously during the years of the Clinton Administration’s war against gun owners, from the 40+ percentage range, down into the 30s.

And there is one other, factor that Helmke didn’t take into account: The population of the country rises by about one percent, or three million, every year. Surveys began showing a decline in “household” gun ownership in the 1980s, but since 1985, for example, the population of the country has increased 30 percent, from 239 million to 310 million. That’s more than enough to compensate for the decline in “yes” responses to pollsters asking whether people have any guns in their homes.

So, we’d say we hate to be the one to tell you, Paul, but that wouldn’t be honest. We’re glad to tell you. There are more Americans owning more guns than ever before and, as we both agree, violent crime is way, way, down.

SOURCE

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Posted in Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Hoplophobia, Law, mysandry, News, Non Compos Mentis, Politics, States Rights, Wordpress Political Blogs | Comments Off on “Nice Try, But No Cigar” For Brady Campaign’s Paul Helmke

Déjà Vu, All Over Again: “More Guns, Less Crime”

September 19, 2010

Paul Helmke and Dennis Henigan — spokesmen for the beleaguered Brady Campaign these days — are old enough to know what a phonograph record is, so for their benefit we’ll put it this way:  At the risk of sounding like a “broken record,” gun ownership has risen to an all-time high, and violent crime has fallen to a 35-year low.  Coinciding with a surge in gun purchases that began shortly before the 2008 elections, violent crime decreased six percent between 2008 and 2009, according to the FBI. This included an eight percent decrease in murder and a nine percent decrease in robbery.

Since 1991, when total violent crime peaked, it has decreased 43 percent to a 35-year low. The murder rate, less than half what it was in 1980, is now at a 45-year low. Throughout, the number of guns that Americans own has risen by about four million a year, including record numbers of the two types of firearms that the Brady folks would most like to see banned — handguns and the various firearms they call “assault weapons.”

Predictions that increasing the number of guns would cause crime to increase have been proven profoundly lacking in clairvoyance. One of our favorite gems comes from the Brady outfit, when it was known as the National Council to Control Handguns: “There are now 40 million handguns. . . . the number could build to 100 million. . . . the consequences can be terrible to imagine,” the group warned in the mid-1970s.

“Terrible consequences” indeed, for gun control supporters. The number of handguns has reached almost 100 million; waiting periods, purchase permits, and prohibitions on carrying firearms for protection have been dismantled in state after state; gun ownership has soared; and violent crime has plummeted.

SOURCE

Related, same source;

Speaking of Brady Campaign’s Paul Helmke and Dennis Henigan, we wouldn’t want them losing their grip and falling off the far left edge of the planet.  An electronic search reveals that the two of them have submitted over 200 essays to the leftist www.HuffingtonPost.com website since January of 2006.

“It is time for progressives to stand up to the radical right,” Henigan proclaims in a recent item.   “It is time for progressives to stand up to the right’s misappropriation of our Constitution and to claim for themselves the label of ‘constitutionalists.’  After all, proponents of a stronger federal government were the winners of the Founding-era debate.  The radical right of the modern era can trace its lineage only to the losers.”

Henigan may be confused about American history, since no one of his political orientation traces his lineage back to anyone associated with the founding of this country.  But when it comes to losers, Henigan ought to know better than most.  In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court put his two theories about the Second Amendment–that it protected a right of a state to have a militia, or that it protected a right of a person to be armed in a state militia–in the “recycling bin” and clicked on “empty.”

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Posted in Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Hoplophobia, Law, News, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs | 15 Comments »

Straw Purchase Felon Michael Bloomberg better get this one correct :)

June 11, 2010

The Mayor of New York City had better be looking a bit south and paying some attention to what is happening there. This is a States Rights issue and it really should have been written to cover more issues than firearms. But? West Virginia shines this day. Basking in the bright light of liberty and justice!

Fairfax, Va. — Today Governor Joe Manchin (D) signed NRA-supported Senate Bill 1005 into law in West Virginia. He had vetoed the original version of this bill (SB 515) earlier this year due to a drafting error. Recognizing the importance of this measure, Governor Manchin added SB 515 to his agenda for the 2010 Extraordinary Session and it was renumbered SB 1005. Both bills, introduced by State Senator Jeff Kessler (D-2), will make it a crime to knowingly solicit illegal gun sales and to conduct illegal sting operations like those conducted by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

“I would like to thank Governor Manchin and the West Virginia legislature for taking the necessary steps to prevent these illegal entrapment schemes,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of NRA-ILA. “We hope that governors and legislators around the country follow in Virginia and West Virginia’s footsteps and make this the law of their respective states.”

This measure passed out of the West Virginia House of Delegates on May 14, 2010 and will take effect 90 days from its passage. A similar piece of legislation was signed into law in Virginia in 2007.

“Any elected official who wants to truly have an impact on reducing crime knows that the way to do it is to focus law enforcement resources on prosecuting crime,” concluded Cox. “Our hardworking federal, state and local law enforcement officials should be able to do their jobs without having to worry about out-of-state politicians and their political agendas.”

SOURCE

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Posted in Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Hoplophobia, Law, mysandry, News, Non Compos Mentis, Politics, States Rights, Wordpress Political Blogs | 3 Comments »

What’s “Collapsing” Here? AR 15 Ownership or VPC?

March 20, 2010

Oh, those evil black rifles…

The BATFE recently released U.S. firearm manufacturer production data showing that during 2008, AR-15s accounted for eight percent of all firearms and 22 percent of all rifles made in the U.S. and not exported. The number of AR-15s in 2008 — over 337,000 — is staggering, but may have been topped in 2009. And, at the current rate of production, the total number of AR-15s in the U.S. will exceed 2.5 million some time this year, and that doesn’t even count production before 1986, the figures for which are not available.

In other words, the AR-15 market has collapsed, because no one wants AR-15s. At least, that’s what Josh Sugarmann, of the Violence Policy Center, wrote last week on the Huffington Post blog, where the fringe gathers to commiserate about everything it thinks is wrong with America. Sugarmann’s evidence consists of the fact that KBI has discontinued its Charles Daly brand AR-15 line.

We’re not sure what’s happening on Sugarmann’s planet, but on the American portion of Earth the numbers of AR-15 manufacturers and the AR-15s they produce are at all-time highs. AR-15s have been popular for decades and that popularity is growing in leaps and bounds for a variety of reasons. Innovations relating to defensive rifle use now center on AR-15 carbines. Bar none, the AR-15 in its various configurations is the leading marksmanship training and competition rifle in the country, and there are more kinds of training and competition opportunities built around the AR-15 than ever before. And the advent of new cartridges that fit the AR-15 platform, and which are legal for hunting deer-sized game in most states, are rapidly making the AR-15 one of the most popular hunting rifles in the country.

What’s really losing popularity in America are the habitual rants and ruses of groups like VPC, as demonstrated by the fact that Sugarmann and his counterpart at the Brady Campaign, Paul Helmke, can’t get their names into newspapers unless they perform a publicity stunt, and sometimes even the stunts don’t work. Maybe if Josh, Paul, and a couple of their co-workers buy some National Match ARs, they could enter a team Service Rifle competition at this summer’s NRA National Rifle Championships.

We can hear it now. “Team Malcontent, take your positions on the firing line!”

SOURCE

“Team Malcontent?” Who says American Gun Owners don’t have a sense of humor?

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Posted in Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Hoplophobia, Law, News, Non Compos Mentis, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs | 6 Comments »

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

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Posted in Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Hoplophobia, Law, mysandry, News, Non Compos Mentis, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs | 1 Comment »

FAUX POLLS: Bloomberg strikes out against Gun Owners yet again!

February 20, 2010

Every since back in college during a Poly Sci class we were shown how to skew polls I have not been a big believer in them. Unless of course, it is something along the lines of obamacare with huge demonstrations by grass root people responding to some action that they are just plain dead set against. Well, the straw sale felon of New York City is getting his comeuppance…

On Dec. 11, 2009, we noted that a poll paid for by anti-gun politician-activist Michael Bloomberg, claiming to show that NRA members support gun control, was conducted by a pollster who has been reprimanded and censured by two professional polling organizations, and who (of course) doesn’t have access to NRA’s confidential member list.

Since then, gun control supporters have cited the poll in numerous newspaper editorials, opinion columns, and letters to editors, all attacking NRA’s opposition to gun control. Recently, however, Bloomberg’s pollster, Frank Luntz, admitted how he gets polls to turn out the way his employers want. In a “Penn and Teller” interview posted on YouTube, Luntz says, “The key in survey research is to ask questions that people care about the answers [sic], and to ask the question in a way that you get the right answer.” He added, “[W]ith just a single change of wording, you’ll get a very different reaction in terms of how they think and how they feel.”

Thanks, Frank, for making it easier for us to write letters to newspapers pointing out why no one should take your “poll of NRA members” seriously.

SOURCE

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Posted in Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Hoplophobia, Law, News, Politics, Stupid is as Stupid Does, Wordpress Political Blogs | Comments Off on FAUX POLLS: Bloomberg strikes out against Gun Owners yet again!

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

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Posted in Education, Gun Control, Hoplophobia, Law, mysandry, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs | 4 Comments »

Supreme Court Hands Down Key Campaign Finance Decision

January 21, 2010

While this is good news there is still McCain Feingold out there that needs to be destroyed. Along with the political careers of the sponsors… Partial overturns are meaningless.

Fairfax, Va. – The National Rifle Association praised the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision today in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, removing unconstitutional restrictions on the NRA’s ability to speak freely at election time.

The late Sen. Paul Wellstone had said during the original debate over this legislation that it was his intention to silence groups like the NRA. While the author of this measure had singled out the NRA, this law delivered a clear message to all American citizens: “Keep your mouths shut and stay out of our political debates.”

Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive vice president, said, “This ruling is a victory for anyone who believes that the First Amendment applies to each and every one of us. The majesty of free speech is that any American can roll out of bed and speak as freely as The New York Times, NBC or politicians. This is a defeat for arrogant elitists who wanted to carve out free speech as a privilege for themselves and deny it to the rest of us; and for those who believed that speech had a dollar value and should be treated and regulated like currency, and not a freedom. Today’s decision reaffirms that the Bill of Rights was written for every American and it will amplify the voice of average citizens who want their voices heard.”

The case originally centered on the FEC’s denial of Citizens United’s attempt to broadcast a film about Hillary Clinton through on-demand cable services in January 2008, but had broader implications in protecting the First Amendment rights of organizations like the NRA during election time.

Chris W. Cox, NRA-ILA chief lobbyist, said, “This decision today returns sanity to our political system. The First Amendment does not allow Congress to make laws denying Americans the right to speak out on issues, the right to assemble or organize on public policy issues, or the right to petition our government for redress of grievances.”

SOURCE

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Posted in Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Law, News, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs | 1 Comment »

The Fat Lady Sang, and Martha Coakley isn’t her name!

January 20, 2010

There are few times in life when something truly historical happens, and fewer still when there is a social upheaval that restores freedom and liberty.

The utter arrogance of the democrats was their downfall. But who would have thought that the peoples republic of Massachusetts would have thrown the bums out? Decent liberty loving Americans from across the nation, that is who. Martha Coakley is no law and order champion as portrayed by some supporters. She is a sexist that practices mysandry from her position of power. A closet Marxist, and supports some of the most egregious policies that ignore, and or destroys the Constitutional protections of Americans. Led by the nose by epic fail obama she received her just desserts. The fat lady sang in Massachusetts. Will she once again stand, and sing America the beautiful this coming November? We must, as always remain vigilant.

On behalf of the 4 million members of the National Rifle Association, we would like to offer congratulations to Senator-elect Scott Brown on his hard-fought and well-deserved victory in the Massachusetts U.S. Senate Special Election. We would like to thank all gun owners, hunters and NRA members in the Bay State for seizing this unique opportunity to elect a supporter of our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms to the U.S. Senate.

Scott Brown‘s victory is a stunning defeat for gun control extremists, including the Massachusetts-based “Stop Handgun Violence”, who spent significant manpower in an unsuccessful attempt to try and turn out anti-gun voters for Martha Coakley. Their crass attempts to misrepresent Brown’s record — a record that in stark contrast to Coakley’s, has been tough on criminals yet supportive of the rights of law-abiding Massachusetts gun owners — clearly failed.

Again, the NRA congratulates Senator-elect Brown on his outstanding and historic victory.

SOURCE
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Related: Economy and the election

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Posted in Domestic Violence, Economics, Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Hoplophobia, Immigration, Law, mysandry, News, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs | 2 Comments »

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