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One more NSSF post

Posted on by Caleb

Obviously, a lot has been said about the Future of Hunting and Shooting Sports report, and now that we’ve received a very clear statement from NSSF about it, and how they’re not going to toss handgunners under the bus, I want to take a moment and re-address something that came up on last night’s show.

Bitter mentioned that NSSF has been tremendously responsive and excellent at working with feedback from bloggers, really from the moment that the report went out.  They’ve done really well with this, and are also doing quite well with positioning themselves on the cutting edge of information sharing technology.  Just look at the Shooting Sports Summit for example; you can watch live webcasts, read updates on their website, or even follow the Summit on Twitter.

Taking that with how responsive and open to feedback they’ve been post-Action Items Report; I honestly think that if anything NSSF is deserving of some props for their actions.  This is not to say that I don’t think that there has been some valid criticism leveled at NSSF; but I think when you evaluate the entire situation as a whole, especially with an eye on the resolution, that NSSF has demonstrated a keen interest in working with both New Media and the industry to help ensure that the shooting sports (and hunting) are here to stay.

news

NSSF Statement on Action Items

Posted on by Caleb

From Michael Bane’s blog:

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) – the trade association for the firearms, ammunition, hunting and shooting sports industry — has issued the following statement following the concern by some regarding the action items listed for discussion as part of the Shooting Sports Summit:

The action items presented as part of the NSSF Shooting Sports Summit have been developed by researchers predicated upon three years of public opinion research.

The purpose of the summit is to take the intelligence that has been gathered concerning the public opinions of shooters and non-shooters alike and take our ideas and meld them into coherent new programs and policies to attract, retain and re-introduce participants into the shooting sports – ALL the shooting sports.

NSSF has programs for rifles, shotguns, pistols and revolvers. And, as our motto says, we are always shooting for more.

The intelligence gatherers, like any effective reconnaissance team, studied the opinions we must face and reported their suggestions. As to the strengths and weaknesses of possible courses of action, NSSF does not have to accept their recommendations. All decisions as to what actions NSSF will take will be made by NSSF, after full discussions and consideration of all points of view.

The NSSF has no intention of abandoning pistol shooters. Our very successful First Shots program is specifically designed and targeted to encourage pistol sports shooting. Much of the NSSF staff, including its new president, have been pistol shooting both recreationally and competitively for decades – and, in fact, some have worked in the handgun industry. (bold for my emphasis)

NSSF looks forward to completing a successful summit, helping to foster a strong future for all of the shooting sports.

Good for them.  I think this is the kind of statement we were hoping for yesterday from NSSF, I am quite pleased to see them issue it now.

I also agree with Michael that we shouldn’t let Responsive Management off the hook easily; the way they interpreted the data does appear to be a clear cut of researcher bias, and it’s right to call them (and not NSSF) out on that.

Back to the statement from the President of NSSF, as I said above I’m very pleased with it – I think it clearly addresses the point that the study does contain valuable data that should be looked at, while making it abundantly clear that the National Shooting Sports Federation has no intention of abandoning handgun shooters.  Good for them.

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Podcast: Future of Shooting sports

Posted on by Caleb

Here is the direct link to last night’s podcast if you’d like to download the raw audio.  You can also stream it below, download it from iTunes by searching for “Call me Ahab”.

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Special thanks to Bitter for appearing on last night’s show. We hope to have her and other guests continue to appear in the future.

Upcoming podcasts should include DC vs. Heller commentary, as well as interviews with other gun industry insiders.

Uncategorized

Not my morning

Posted on by Caleb

Last night, on the way home from a business dinner, the “tire pressure low” alert light comes on. On my way, I figure I’ll stop and add some air to the tire. As I’m putting air in, it is literally leaking out so fast that the air compressor can’t keep up (as a side note: Kompressor does not dance).

So, after I get the shitty jack in place and ruin a pretty good pair of khakis, I finally get the donut on so I can drive ALL FIVE MILES to the Lexus dealer. I am a little bitter that it was such a fast leak, thus necessitating putting the spare on to drive such a short distance.

On the flipside, the service at our dealer is spectacular as always.

blogs

Listen to us Live!

Posted on by Caleb

You can listen to tonight’s podcast live at 11pm Eastern time.  We’ll be discussing the NSSF “Future of Hunting and Shooting Sports” report, including our as well as other blog reactions.

To listen live, you can click here to go our BlogTalkRadio channel.  We can even take callers and chat requests during the show, even though I know there will be maybe one or two people listening.

If 11pm Eastern is too late, you will also be able to download the podcast the next day at my blog or a Squeak’s place.

gun control

Anti-Gundamentalism

Posted on by Caleb

Oh my goodness, I actually laughed out loud when I read the latest post from the God Not Guns Blog (tinyURL used to weaken their googlefu). It’s called Gundamentalism, and it’s really, really bad. Basically, she’s comparing pro-gun groups to religious fundamentals, but the problem with her comparison is that it’s so loose that it could be applied to any group that is fanatically devoted to their cause, like, oh, I don’t know, anti-gun advocates. I took her entire post and changed just a few words, I call it “Anti-Gundamentalism”.

 

In her book,

Battle for God, Karen Armstrong says that fundamentalism in every religion encourages a sense of crisis among its believers, fostering the conviction that they are the first and last defense against the corrosion of crucial values. Armstrong says that because fundamentalism is rooted in a profound fear of annihilation, its adherents see themselves in a fight for survival against society at large. I believe that this is precisely how gun control proponents portray themselves.

I believe that

America’s anti-gun culture is marked by zeal closely akin to that of religious fundamentalism. The gun control movement is built upon a system of belief that is both absolutist and aggressive. It has its sacred text, its creed, its icon and its ideology. According to its doctrine, only the government offers protection against tyranny at the hands of criminals, foreign terrorists, even our own government. Its followers believe they are in a cosmic struggle to protect
America’s most cherished value: safety. I call this movement “Anti-Gundamentalism.” In my next several entries, I’ll be talking about this movement and its ideology.

I changed maybe three or four words, that’s how poorly written this post is. If she actually starts comparing pro-gun advocates to religious fundamentals, please make sure to come here the day after for my critique. What Rachel fails to understand is that while the pro-gun movement is undeniably passionate about our cause, comparing us to religious fundamentals fails on many levels, not the least of which is that the gun rights movement is predicated on logic and reason – if anyone could be accused of having a religious fervor about their cause, it would be the anti-gun crowd who believes that inanimate objects have some sort of malevolent will to cause violence.

self defense

Law Abiding Gun owner

Posted on by Caleb

Armed citizen stops bank robbery, June 18th.

The robber demanded a stack of larger bills instead and moved both hands to the window to collect the cash. Within seconds, Fawzi drew his handgun, racked a round in the chamber and told the man that he wasn’t robbing the bank.

I am not going to Monday-morning quarterback the guy’s tactics – those aren’t the issue.  What I want to highlight is another instance of a law-abiding gun owner legally using his firearm to stop the commission of a felony crime, and acting in the defense of other citizens.

shooting

NSSF Report

Posted on by Caleb

By now, everyone who’s anyone is talking about the report that came out on Monday regarding the future of the hunting and shooting sports. Uncle has a pretty good summary, which makes the excellent point that we really do need to hang together, as well as summarizing some of the other points brought up.

Other coverage here, here, and here (the last link is to Michael Bane’s post, which is the best so far). We’ll also be talking about the Response Management report tonight on Gun Nuts: The Next Generation with Squeaky and myself – looking at it from the point of view of people who are shooters but not hunters.

The heart of the issue that’s offending a lot of handgunners and sport shooters is this section from the report:

Action Item 163. Efforts to promote acceptance of shooting sports should focus on rifles and shotguns.

Action Item 164. Avoid communications imagery that shows people shooting at human silhouettes. Be aware that there is much resistance among the general public to target shooting at human silhouettes, and images showing this will not be as well-received as alternative images (e.g., a person shooting at a standard bull’s eye target with a rifle).

Now, I probably had the same reaction to those sections that a lot of shooters had, which was a big “WTF”; because right there on the front of the report it says “NSSF”. It didn’t jive mentally for me to see NSSF’s name associated with a report that essentially sells out the sport shooting and handgun sport community, especially in the wake of the positive media coverage that handgun shooting had be seeing lately.

So yesterday, I talked for a bit with Ted Novin from NSSF, who was able to clear things up for me. He explained that the report was commissioned by NSSF as a study of different methods which could be used to further participation in the shooting sports, and that the action items recommended were not endorsed or sanctioned by NSSF. The report was done by a company called Response Management, who put it together and proposed the “action items” including the objectionable ones; what NSSF is doing with it at the Shooting Sports Summit is reviewing all the action items for their possible feasibility.

The short version is that NSSF is not selling out handgunners, and they don’t endorse the action items which propose that. When speaking with NSSF yesterday, they were very quick to make it clear that they weren’t behind the action items in question, and the company which put the report together is responsible for proposing those items.  It’s important to note as well that while some of the action items may be disagreeble, they are predicated on public opinion data.  While you may or not agree with the results, the data was gathered by polling people, which means that it does need to be taken seriously, even if you disagree with the recommendation.

Me personally, if I were confronted with info that said that people had a negative public image of handguns, I’d do everything in my power to change that image, and not run and hide from it.

I definitely agree with Uncle that we need to be careful to not eat our own here, be it hunters or sport shooters or handgunners – while it’s unfortunate that NSSF’s logo is splashed all over the report, it’s important to understand that none of the “action items” in the report have been, or are guaranteed to be, acted upon by NSSF. I am pretty confident that any measures and or action items which divide shooters and hunters and through handgunners under the bus stand almost no chance whatsoever of being enacted by NSSF.

We’ll be talking more about the report this evening, on the podcast which you can listen to live at 11pm eastern time, or download the next morning.