Gun Nuts Media

My neighboring state of Illinois has some of the most oppressive gun laws in the nation, however it seems that lately that grassroots activism has been doing an excellent job at keeping Mayor Daley of Chicago and his anti-gun cronies at bay.

The high-profile proposal, aimed at closing what Daley sees as a loophole on private handgun sales, fell only two votes short. The measure would have required people who sell guns privately to first get background checks of potential buyers through licensed dealers.

Two votes.  People who think grassroots activism doesn’t work should take a hard look at that – the measure was defeated by two votes, two votes which were likely influenced by the deluge of pro-gun rights emails and letters that the Illinois gun owners had been sending.  The RKBA movement in IL deserves a Bravo Zulu for this.

If/when we get an individual rights decision in Heller and the DC Gun ban goes down, I think that Chicago’s all-out gun ban would be the next logical target.  It would be nice to see my friends in Illinois have the opportunity to enjoy some of the freedoms I take for granted in Indiana.

I agree with Bitter than people need to know how classless the Brady Campaign’s protest was yesterday.

She reprinted three letters to the editor that ran in the Roanoke Times, and I want to run them here as well.

Gun protest on Tech campus is a disgusting idea

So this gun-control group is going to protest gun laws by having 32 people lie on the Drillfield (”Advocates of gun control plan lie-in,” April 9 news story). And this is supposed to be a protest against guns? Disgusting.

First, they are using a tragedy to further their agenda. Don’t get me wrong, other groups have done the same, but their methods are inappropriate.

Second, they are doing so by having 32 people lie as if dead on the Drillfield during a time of healing. How is their having people play the victims supposed to help a community heal?

Third, they are disregarding the request of the university. How is anyone supposed to have any respect for this organization when they have no respect for those they are supposedly representing?

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Protesters should show a little respect

Regarding “Advocates of gun control plan lie-in” at Virginia Tech, (April 9 news story):

Rather than politicizing a memorial service to honor and remember the victims of Seung-Hui Cho, gun-control advocates should respect the student body’s request not to hold a protest to overshadow their day of healing.

This is not the first time the lead protest group has used the Tech victims to raise its profile. The day of the shooting, before victims were fully evacuated from the campus, the Brady Campaign changed its Web site to reflect a Virginia Tech-themed fundraiser. It urged those who felt sympathy for the victims to give to the organization to fund political activity rather than to funds set up to help the victims.

It’s a shame they are refusing to honor requests of students to back off for a day before they use the campus as a public relations ploy and fundraising excuse again. As a friend to many Virginia Tech alums moved by last year’s tragedy, I hope that on April 16 we spend the day remembering those who deserve to be honored instead of wondering what kind of political stunts will be pulled by D.C. lobbying groups.

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Tech’s student body asked: No protests, please, on April 16

In response to “Tech plays censor on April 16,” (April 10 editorial):

As a Tech student, I would like to point out that school officials are not acting on a “whim,” but in response to the overwhelming student desire not to have protests of any sort disrupt the anniversary of April 16, 2007.

The Collegiate Times, the school’s paper, is full of letters expressing the desire for no protests. Our Student Government Association passed a resolution that respectfully requests any protests be done at another time.

Our community is not creating “artificial peace and harmony,” as you state it. We had a strong community before April 16 and we have a strong community now. We simply don’t want outsiders coming onto our campus, our home, to protest on that day.

If the very few students involved with the protest feel that’s the way they should honor their friends, why not choose another location or another day?

This is a classic example of liberal media rushing to protect First Amendment rights. Why do you not do the same for Second Amendment rights? How can you claim that one freedom is more important than another?

The editorials above show a decent representation of how a lot of people felt about Brady’s protest – from talking to friends who go to VA Tech and live in the great Commonwealth of Virginia, the sentiment was widely agree with.

Any “activist” group that is willing to put a “donate” button on their website on the day of the shooting, or run another cheesy membership drive on the one year anniversary deserves to be torpedoed out in the open where everyone can see the kind of base, crass tactics that they are willing to employ in the name of their agenda.

As you know, yesterday was the one year memorial for the VA Tech shootings. If you don’t remember from a year back on the very day of the shootings, the Brady Campaign posted a “donate now” button on their website, in what I can only construe as a crass attempt to drive membership in the wake of the tragedy.

On the one year anniversary, they continued their proud tradition of repugnant fund-raising techniques, once again attempting to leverage the murders at VA Tech into additional membership and money. If you tried to visit their website yesterday, you were presented with the following Flash page which played the two images below.

and the second image

Once again, the Brady Campaign has managed to snatch crassness from the jaws of decency. You stay classy, Brady Campaign.

The American Hunters and Shooter’s Association has released their official endorsement of Barack Obama, offering the final nail in their coffin as a “pro-gun rights” group.

The link to the ABC political blog is almost funny, because it’s kind of backwards. They think that AHSA is a pro-gun group, and that their timing in endorsing Obama is unfortunate because yesterday was the VA Tech memorial. The thing is that it is unfortunate, but not because AHSA is pro-gun. Rather it’s demonstrating the anti-gun group’s absolute willingness to use tragedies and their memorials as a platform for their anti-gun agenda.

I do have to give AHSA props though, because the move is a well calculated one – to a casual person it would seem like AHSA is for hunters and shooters and that their endorsement of Obama means something for shooters.

Nevermind that the American Hunters and Shooters Association has a track record of associating with the Brady Campaign, attacking legitimate pro-gun groups, and even going around leaving ad homenim attacks on pro-gun blogs. The fact that an anti-gun false flag group has endorsed Obama and spent time talking down Hillary has only reinforced my decision to use Indiana’s open primary to vote for Hillary. Come November, I’m voting for McCain no matter what, but I hope he’s not running against Senator Obamahope.