Archive for the 'National Rifle Association' Category

Matt Valentine writing at The Atlantic has a breathless story about how the up and coming power broker on the gun scene is the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

Every year from 1998 through 2010, the NRA spent at least ten times more than the NSSF on direct lobbying. Today those numbers are converging—the NRA has spent $1.7 million so far in 2013, compared to $1.1 million spent by the NSSF, mostly in efforts to loosen state requirements for concealed carry permits. The NRA still boasts the political muscle to sway the outcome of major legislation, but the big gun lobby’s intervention is conspicuous and subject to ridicule, and an NRA campaign contribution can sometimes become a political liability—in a 2013 PPP poll, 39% of respondents said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate backed by the NRA, whereas only 26% said they’d be more likely to. This April, when Senator Mitch McConnell (the NRA’s single biggest recipient of campaign contributions) used procedural tactics to block an expanded background check bill, NRA Board member Adolphous Busch publicly resigned from the organization, saying the group “clearly places priority on the needs of gun and ammunition manufacturers while disregarding the opinions of [its] 4 million individual members.”

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This year, with gun deaths expected to exceed 31,000, and with the public more acutely aware of every tragic shooting, the NSSF managed to grab some positive headlines for a gesture of political compromise. During the senate hearings in the confirmation of B. Todd Jones to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the NSSF issued an open letter, endorsing President Obama’s nominee. A close reading reveals that the statement of support is hardly a ringing endorsement: “Undoubtedly, we will disagree with the ATF from time-to-time and are fully prepared to take the steps necessary to represent the interest of our industry members, but we are confident that under Mr. Jones we can agree to disagree with ATF in a mutually respectful manner.” However lukewarm, the letter was a surprising development—together with the NRA, the NSSF had pressured legislators to block every previous nominee for the ATF directorship since 2006. But under the threat of the “nuclear option” to change filibuster rules, Senate leaders had already agreed to confirm all of Obama’s appointments this summer. With Jones’s appointment a foregone conclusion, the main effect of the NSSF endorsement was to soften the headlines that would have otherwise prevailed (i.e. “ATF director finally confirmed after seven years of gun lobby resistance”).

Matt apparently believes the propaganda that gun owners really do support universal background checks.  This, along with some wishful thinking, has led him to conclude that the NRA is out of touch with its membership, while the more moderate NSSF is the up and coming powerhouse, more reasonable and less prone to extremes.

But Mike Vanderboegh calls the NSSF quislings and appeasers, and David Codrea and others lampoon not the NRA, but the NSSF.  In my extensive writing on the universal background checks, I somehow missed the fact that the NSSF had weighed in.  Had I caught this, I probably would have said something like they are a willing tool of Satan.

And it’s beyond me why anyone would think that gun owners care what Adolphous Busch had to say about anything.  The real rift that Matt misses because he is writing about something totally foreign to him, is that whether the subject is the NSSF or the NRA, they will all be held accountable for their sins if they ever sell out gun owners and side with the wicked totalitarians.

For the progressives among us, I know what you’re thinking, or at least what you want your fellow progressives to think.  It took on all the hallmarks of a major defeat, the gun bill fiasco did.  Your President, your progressives in the Senate, and the turncoat Republicans all conspired to push your agenda, and it crashed and burned.  You’re heartbroken and outraged at the same time.

You’ve tried to convince yourself that it wasn’t really the defeat it seemed.  The tactics are to blame.  “While an A rating from the NRA has long been a point of pride for politicians, MAIG is hoping its grades soon will carry the same weight to ensure votes and donations. The Mayors Against Illegal Guns Scorecard will incorporate the voting records, bill co-sponsorships, and public statements of members of Congress to determine a letter grade, NRA-style. MAIG will look at politicians’ stances on high-capacity magazines, background checks, and state authority to establish standards for concealed carry.”

So the evil NRA just outdid you at your own game.  Copy their tactics, you will.  It must be the tactics, for it couldn’t be that America doesn’t want your gun control.  Yet another tactic you’re investigating is to convince yourselves that the NRA isn’t really as powerful as they seem.  You will talk enough to make people comfortable with your plans.  But you can’t decide if you’ve got the clout.  Joe Manchin even admitted “ff the NRA didn’t score this, we would’ve had 15 more votes.”

And oh, there are the excuses.  Poor Michael Hirsh has perhaps the best one.  ” … it is practically a iron law of politics that the larger the interest group—in this case, the 90 percent of all Americans who want background checks—the less likely it will be able to mobilize against a smaller, more organized and passionate interest group, such as the National Rifle Association.”  Nine out of ten people can’t win anything against the one holdout.

But Michael concludes that with enough money, threats, and primaried Senators, you should be able to construct a Senate that is more conducive to your interests.  So we’re back to the NRA tactics again – because, you know, it couldn’t be that people aren’t interested in your proposed gun control measures.  Surely 90%+ of the people think like you do, sensible people, who just didn’t play a role against that evil behemoth, the NRA.  Everyone was bullied by those monsters from the NRA, Wayne and Chris.

I know, you don’t want to believe that the polls are badly misleading when they ask about those ethereal platitudes, as opposed to when the specifics are presented, complicating things for you.  You don’t want to believe it even when your own press tells you this.  So the 90%+ number must be right, and the evil NRA is to blame, or your own tactics, or lack of money, or something like that.  It cannot be that the people aren’t interested in your gun control measures.

So you hate the evil NRA, and harbor even worse thoughts for the gun manufacturers who makes these ever improving products of death, convince Americans that they need them, and hand over the propaganda points to the NRA.  They all must be stopped, you think.

True enough, Wayne and Chris get beaten up a bit in the media, but that’s okay.  We gun owners expect them to take it, and pay them well for it.  We don’t feel too sorry for them.  But there is something that you really don’t understand about all of this, and I feel a bit apprehensive in telling you this, rather like I am divulging our secrets.  But I just have to say these things.

The way it really works is different than you think.

The NRA is hearing from its constituency (that would be us), and the firearms manufacturers do our bidding.  We’re the boss.  A firearm hasn’t been fully vetted until it hits the American civilian market (the military forces its folks to use the bidder of choice), and the manufacturers respond to us.  They make what we want.  They earn our money, and if you think that we sit back and wait for the manufacturers to tell us what to think, just ask Smith and Wesson what happened as a result of their agreement with the Clinton administration.

We send Wayne out with his talking points.  We set Chris up to succeed in the printed media.  They’re our front men.  But we know things you don’t.  You see, we have the guns.  We know gun owners … we know them at work and church and in our neighborhood.  We talk to them.  We see them at the range, we discuss things, we learn from each other.  We know that this 90% number you’ve thrown around isn’t right.  It’s an outright lie.  These 9 out of 10 gun owners you’re talking about just don’t materialize in reality.  We know.  We’re around gun owners every day.

The hard realities of life are sometimes difficult to digest.  But the reality is that we own the NRA.  You’re directing your hatred at the wrong folks.  The firearms manufacturers make what we want.  We keep them financially strong.  The Senators aren’t really afraid of the NRA or Smith and Wesson or Ruger.  They are afraid that smart analysts will figure out what they’re really doing and the gun owning public will be well educated in the finer legal points of the proposed laws.

They may be spewing their hatred for the NRA, but it’s us they really hate.  We are the overlords.  We are gun owners, and you don’t control the gun base you thought you did.  All your base are belong to us.  Make your time.

MSNBC:

H. Joaquin Jackson is the kind of iconic rifleman that gun advocates welcomed to their board. He spent 27 years as a Texas Ranger and is remembered for following his commander into a jailhouse shootout and capturing an elusive horse thief.

The actor Nick Nolte spent several weeks studying Jackson in preparation for his role as a Ranger in the 1987 film Extreme Prejudice. And Tommy Lee Jones cast Jackson to play a sheriff in the 1995 TV movie The Good Old Boys alongside Jones, Sissy Spacek, Frances McDormand and a young, unknown Matt Damon.

With Hollywood friends and a storied law-and-order past, Jackson was an ideal fit for the National Rifle Association’s 76-member governing board, which he joined in 2001. Today, however, he is under fire from a younger generation of NRA activists. Organizing online, they want Jackson voted off the gun lobby’s board for his past comments criticizing high-capacity magazines and semi-automatic weapons. His comments are making waves again due to the assault weapons ban recently proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

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“I wouldn’t be with the NRA if I didn’t believe in the Second Amendment,” Jackson told MSNBC in a telephone interview. But critics are not convinced. “Joaquin Jackson has a background in law enforcement and he’s a ‘staunch supporter’ of the Second Amendment…or is he?” recently asked one gun rights activist, Joe Levi, on his blog sittingduckpolicy.com.

“I personally believe a weapon should never have over, as far as a civilian, a five-round capacity. If you’re a hunter, if you’re going to go hunting with a weapon, you shouldn’t need over but one round. So five rounds would be plenty,” said Jackson in the video now labeled by one of his critics as “The Enemy Within” on YouTube.

On assault weapons, Jackson said: “Personally, I think assault weapons basically…need to be in the hands of the military, and in the hands of the police.”

Two years later the NRA’s lobbying wing posted a statement by Jackson to clarify “misunderstandings” about the interview. Jackson said his comments on assault weapons referred only to fully-automatic weapons used mainly by military forces and some police. High-capacity magazines, he clarified, were not appropriate for hunting.

I don’t care that Mr. Jackson is a former Texas Ranger, any more that I would care if he were an engineer or dug ditches for a living.  That movies that were made about his exploits are irrelevant to me.  His history means something to him, but nothing to me.

The same rule applies to boards of directors that applies to politicians.  You are voting for policy decisions.  Nothing more.  If my dog could consistently make decisions that followed my policy, I would vote for her for President.  She would certainly make a better one that the totalitarian clown we currently have.

And that bit about a clarification of his position is clearly a lie.  No one needs to “clarify” that he believes that hunters need to limit their available rounds for  sporting purposes because every state already does that without his assistance.  And as for a high capacity magazine, if all you’re talking about is the difference between LEOs having fully automatic weapons and civilians not being allowed to (a policy with which I firmly disagree anyway), then there is no need to bring it up in the first place.  It’s not germane to the conversation.

Jackson is therefore lying about his clarification.  Jackson’s days should be limited on the NRA board of directors.  There is no place – none – for someone who says he believes in the second amendment but undercuts it with his words.  The second amendment says nothing about hunting, and Mr. Jackson believes in a different second amendment than do I.  Mine is written in the Bill of Rights, and he fabricated his version in his head.

THIS makes it sound like he does.

Kurt Hofmann has a must-read article on the connection between gun confiscations and gun registration (or so-called universal background check).  It’s an issue I have been discussing for some time.  Kurt begins his article this way.

St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner is a frequent and vocal critic of the NRA (see here and here for recent examples), often wondering if the organization’s leadership is merely naively optimistic, à la Neville Chamberlain, in its dealings with the forcible citizen disarmament extremists, or actively collaborationist, à la Vidkun Quisling. Honesty requires, however, acknowledgement of effective steps the NRA does take in defense of gun rights.

Read the rest at Examiner.  Taking off on this honesty though, I have also been a critic of the NRA before, begging, as it were, the NRA to put its full force behind educating the public to the dangers of universal background checks as a pretext for and necessary precondition to a national gun registry, which is itself a precondition for gun confiscations.

Today I received a flyer in the mail from the NRA where they said exactly that.  The NRA might be frustrating at times, but they are still the largest and most powerful gun rights organization in America, and it matters what they say.  I don’t partake in pitting one organization against another.  That’s a loser’s proposition, and it’s what the enemy wants us to do.  I sincerely appreciate each organization that protects gun rights and stands against the totalitarian state.  I will correct them when they wander, and praise them when they do well.

Moving on to Wayne, he is under criticism these days, most notably for his belief in a coming apocalypse and the prudence of guns to address it at a personal level.

National Rifle Association head Wayne LaPierre is again under fire after penning an op-ed that claimed Americans need guns to fight off rampant gangs, terrorists and psychotics.

LaPierre, the NRA’s executive vice president, claimed the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy showed what the future would hold, and why every law-abiding citizen needs to arm themselves.

“We saw the hellish world that the gun prohibitionists see as their utopia,” he wrote in the Daily Caller. “Looters ran wild in south Brooklyn. There was no food, water or electricity. And if you wanted to walk several miles to get supplies, you better get back before dark, or you might not get home at all.”

Immediately LaPierre was attacked. Former GOP congressman Joe Scarborough said, “He has lost his mind,” on his MSNBC show Morning Joe, while President Barack Obama’s strategist David Plouffe called the NRA head “delusional.”

In his argument against new gun control laws, LaPierre described a world where Americans would be defenseless without guns and fall prey to everything from terrorists and Latin American drug gangs to civil unrest and looters in the wake of natural disasters. He said Americans would, in effect, be crazy not to arm themselves against the coming calamity and to rise up in protection of their Second Amendment rights.

Well, Joe Scarborough is a moron and so the balance of what he said is unimportant, but let’s consider the state of the union for a moment.

Pakistan is now our enemy.  We are withdrawing forces from Afghanistan after having lost the campaign because we wanted to wage nation-building instead of war.  Libya is now a disaster, and we left our men to perish in Benghazi with forces available to respond to their need.  Iran is headed towards a nuclear weapon and Israel is alone in her quest for self preservation.  War is coming to the Middle East, and we won’t be energy independent when it happens mostly because of the EPA.

Russia is reasserting itself unopposed in its “near abroad,” and China owns 1.17 trillion in U.S. Treasury Securities.  Our Southern border may as well not exist, and MS-13 is in every major city in the U.S., and most smaller cities, while some in the border patrol and law enforcement across America are bought off with drug money.  The cartels South of the border have morphed into transnational warlords who kidnap, extort, murder, traffic, and torture, and they’re moving North.

We’re in horrible national debt, and our unfunded liabilities reach a staggering $87 trillion.  Within ten years, the interest on the national debt will reach $10 trillion per year, the unemployment rate is still hovering around 8% or higher, the under-employment rate is still around 18% or higher, a recovery is nowhere in sight and won’t be until we get spending and entitlements under control, half of the American people don’t pay federal taxes, 47 million people rely on food stamps and that roll is growing at the rate of 11,000 per day, and the U.S. Marines are set to lose 20,000 men.

We are too broke to refuel our aircraft carriers, the administration has – for now – gotten away with walking guns across the Southern border in an effort to bolster support for gun control in America, food prices may soon soar, and amidst it all, the administration is working hard on that currently critical need to take guns away from the American people, which would of course be the catalyst for fourth generation warfare in America.

I think Wayne is on solid ground here.  In short, good flyer in the mail, good call on a former ally turned enemy, and keep it up.  As for the apocalypse, I don’t have to be told by anyone.  I’m doing my best to prepare for it.  Are you?

UPDATE: Thanks to Mike Vanderboegh for the link.

UPDATE #2: Thanks to David Codrea for the link.

UPDATE #3: Thanks to David Hardy for the link.

From CNN:

The NRA changed its position on background checks. Tonight, Anderson Cooper got NRA board member Sandy Froman,  to address this during tonight’s town hall.
Transcript of he exchange -

Anderson Cooper: has the NRA changed their position on this? Because Wayne LaPierre is now saying universal background checks don’t work. I saw this testimony he gave in 1999 to the House Judiciary Committee and he said, quote, “We think its reasonable to provide mandatory instant criminal background checks for every sale at gun show. No loopholes for anyone”

Sandy Froman: the answer is yes, the NRA has changed their position. The reason it’s changed their position is because the system doesn’t work. The system is not working now. We have to get that working before we can add any more checks to that system. It’s already overburdened. In Colorado, it takes ten days to do an instant check.

AC: you’re saying if it got working, if the existing laws started to be improved, you might support the imposition?

SF: I don’t know. Let’s get it working. Let’s make sure the 23 states that aren’t reporting the names of people who are mentally ill and have violent tendencies, let’s get them reported into the system.

Has the NRA actually heard us?  I have been harping on this issue, as has David Codrea, Kurt Hofmann and others.  Is this a case of the NRA actually having some backbone?  Are they going to man-up (sorry Sandy) and stick to their guns (and our guns)?

By the way, you have read me say that universal background checks are the way to develop a national gun registry, that a national gun registry (and in fact, all gun control) is the action of a wicked government, and that it is only a pretext for and necessary prerequisite condition for gun confiscations.  Want to see a statist say the same thing? (via Mike).

It’s nice that we’re finally talking about gun control. It’s very sad that it took such a terrible tragedy to talk about it, but I’m glad the conversation is happening. I hear a lot about assault weapon and large magazine bans, and whilst I’m supportive of that, it won’t solve the problem. The vast majority of firearm deaths occur with handguns. Only about 5% of people killed by guns are killed by guns which would be banned in any foreseeable AWB.

Furthermore, there seems to be no talk about high powered rifles. What gun nuts don’t want you to know is many target and hunting rifles are chambered in the same round (.223/5.56mm) that Lanza’s assault weapon was. Even more guns are chambered for more powerful rounds, like the .30-06 or (my personal “favorite”) 7.62x54R. Even a .22, the smallest round manufactured on a large scale, can kill easily. In fact, some say the .22 kills more people than any other round out there.

Again, I like that we’re talking about assault weapons, machine guns, and high capacity clips. But it only takes one bullet out of one gun to kill a person. Remember the beltway sniper back in 2002? The one who killed a dozen odd people? Even though he used a bushmaster assault rifle, he only fired one round at a time before moving. He could have used literally any rifle sold in the US for his attacks.

The only way we can truly be safe and prevent further gun violence is to ban civilian ownership of all guns. That means everything. No pistols, no revolvers, no semiautomatic or automatic rifles. No bolt action. No breaking actions or falling blocks. Nothing. This is the only thing that we can possibly do to keep our children safe from both mass murder and common street violence.

Unfortunately, right now we can’t. The political will is there, but the institutions are not. Honestly, this is a good thing. If we passed a law tomorrow banning all firearms, we would have massive noncompliance. What we need to do is establish the regulatory and informational institutions first. This is how we do it.  The very first thing we need is national registry. We need to know where the guns are, and who has them.

Prior:

The ATF Doesn’t Know Who Has Guns

Mixed Signals From NRA On Universal Background Check

Universal Background Check And National Gun Registry

Kurt Hofmann points out some unfortunate vacillation and equivocation by the NRA on the issue of universal background checks.

The GOP seems to have decided that on the question of universal background checks for gun purchases (an outright ban, in other words, on private sales), not only is discretion the better part of valor, but abject cowardice is the better part of discretion. As noted in the Huffington Post Tuesday, several GOP senators when asked about the issue appeared absolutely terrified of the question:

“Uh, I don’t know what you mean,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who then ended the conversation by turning around and walking into a room where senators were having lunch, closing the door behind him.

“I need to have more details. I, you know, I just need — you need to ask me after I’ve talked to our judiciary staff in our office,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), also heading to the Senate lunch. “I hate to respond just in the hallway, so I won’t.”

“I’ve got — my wife’s here. I’m sorry. I’ve gotta — thanks,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.).

Completely understood, Senator–no one should be expected to answer whether or not he favors banning private gun sales within his wife’s hearing. Even Tea Party “firebrand” Rand Paul claims not to have decided yet on the issue.

Missouri’s own Senator Roy Blunt (“A” rated by the NRA) appears open to the idea, saying, “I think we ought to talk about that [universal background checks],” although he did seem reluctant to impose checks on “two guys living next door [who] want to trade shotguns.”

As noted here Tuesday, NRA president David Keene has recently openly advocated background checks at gun shows. Granted, when NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre addressed a hunting group in Nevada this week, he spoke forcefully against universal background checks (relevant portion is about a minute and a half long).

In other words, if we are to believe both Keene and LaPierre, they are inventing a distinction between private sales at gun shows (seemingly on the bargaining table), and those elsewhere (seemingly not on the table).

But on or about the same time, current member of the board of directors, Marion P. Hammer, was writing the following commentary.

Imagine a grandfather who wants to give a family shotgun to his 12-year-old grandson having to do a background check on his grandson before giving him the shotgun.

Or a friend having to do a background check on his lifetime best buddy before lending him a hunting rifle.

Or, if your mother had a prowler at her home, having to do a background check on your own mom before you could give her one of your guns for protection.

That’s what “universal background checks,” as proposed by President Barack Obama, do. They turn traditional innocent conduct into a criminal offense. They target law-abiding gun owners.

Universal background checks are background checks on every transfer, sale, purchase, trade, gift, rental and loan of a firearm between any and all individuals. All background checks must be conducted through a federally licensed dealer. Universal background checks have nothing to do with gun shows.

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Universal background check system legislation, which we have previously seen, allows the government to keep a computerized registry of gun owners.

In addition to the absurdity of having to do background checks on people you know are not criminals, would you like to pay up to $100 or more just to give your grandson a shotgun or lend a hunting rifle to your best friend or give your mom a gun for protection?

At the worst, there is infighting within the ranks of the NRA.  At the very best there is confusion and indecision within the ranks of the NRA leadership.  This is the best possible scenario, and yet even this isn’t good.  It’s sad to see the NRA divided on such an important issue.  The GOP is in disarray over just about everything these days, and needs the direction of the NRA.  Unfortunately, if they did look to the NRA for this direction, they would look in vain.  Hopefully, Hammer’s view prevails, but they need to hear from you on this important issue.

Prior:

Universal Background Check And National Gun Registry

The NRA On Universal Background Checks

Kurt Hofmann:

Back in December, St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner predicted that a private sales ban is the most likely federal infringement on that which shall not be infringed–far easier to pass than banning so-called “assault weapons” (gun banner-speak for “regime change rifles“) or “high capacity” magazines (gun banner-speak for “standard capacity magazines”) will be.

If anything about that assessment has changed, the difference is that it looks still more accurate now. In that article, we noted that even many supposedly “pro-gun” Republicans have historically supported private sales bans even before the Sandy Hook atrocity created an anti-gun feeding frenzy that has terrified many of gun rights advocates’ less stalwart “allies” in Congress.

Since then, NRA president David Keene has made clear that the NRA is quite willing to trade Americans’ right to privately buy and sell firearms for . . . well, really for nothing but perhaps a bit of a delay before the gun prohibitionists renew their push to eviscerate every other aspect of the Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms. The Hill, in an article titled “NRA chief ‘generally supportive’ of strong background checks” has video of Keene appearing on CBS This Morning, where he discussed the NRA’s surrender terms:

Read the rest at Examiner.  No, no, no, and a thousand times no.  The NRA cannot cave on this issue.  Ignore the claptrap about “caring for the children” and “making sure that weapons don’t fall into the hands of criminals.”  It’s all a ruse designed by the anti-gun lobby.  Universal background checks have nothing whatsoever to do with keeping weapons out of the hands of criminals, or a reduction in violence of any sort.  The system, if set up, is a predecessor and necessary prerequisite to a national gun registry.  This is evil to its very core.

So the next time you hear this claptrap, if it comes from ignorant people, educate them.  If it comes from people who know better, call them a liar.  If it comes from the NRA, tell them that they’re cowards and do not represent your interests.  And then tell them that you want to see them thrown out on their heads so that they can be replaced with people who honor the second amendment.

No surrender, no retreat.  Not … one … inch.

Prior: Against Universal Background Checks

From Fox News:

The White House and the nation’s leading gun lobby will meet face to face Thursday amid an intensifying effort in Washington to craft new gun control measures, in what could be a testy session.

The National Rifle Association confirmed to Fox News that the group has accepted an invitation to meet with the Vice President Biden-led task force examining ways to curb gun violence. The task force was formed in the wake of the Connecticut school massacre and is running up against an end-of-the-month deadline to produce a set of proposals.

The administration says mental health and the entertainment industry will likely be examined as part of that process. But much of the discussion, and proposals from Democratic members of Congress, continue to center around gun control.

Well, it’s that time of year again, time to renew my membership.  So let’s make my own expectations for Wayne, Chris and the balance of the NRA executives clear.  Meet with these guys all you want, or feel you need.  But there must be limits.

I know that you’ve pointed to mental health issues, and I’ve made my own history with getting a concealed handgun permit known before.  I had to have a felony background check, get fingerprinted, and sign over authority for my own medical records to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff.  Any admissions to local hospitals for mental health or substance abuse problems would have been reason to have denied my application for a concealed handgun permit.

Of course, I have no personal issues to hide, and I got my permit, but I foresee a time in America where this might be controlled by the federal government, and there might be some rather disagreeable standard (such as Freudian Psychology) applied by external reviewers who are themselves rather disagreeable (e.g., Psychiatrists who have been specifically approved by the state).  For that matter, the mere act of desiring to own a firearm may be seen as aberrant behavior and made a reason to deny the request.

As for closing this so-called “gun show loophole,” that’s not the real point.  The phrase is a smoke screen to hide the fact that the concern isn’t real.  It’s a phantom issue.  As you know, gun shows are no different than person-to-person transactions in locations other than gun shows.  What they are really after is grandpa gifting his rifle or pistol to his grandson for Christmas without state approval.

We find the notion that grandpa cannot gift and bequeath his guns to be reprehensible, stomach-turning, repulsive, and highly immoral.  This is non-negotiable.  We don’t want the federal government involved any further in our business.

In summary, I don’t want you to press this mental health issue too far.  I am unconcerned about video games.  Getting a federal firearms license involved in my personal and family business isn’t an option.

Basically, not one more inch.  Not … a … single … inch.  I don’t want any more laws, regulations or stipulations.  I don’t want a single new requirement, code, interpretation, or federal worker.

If this is uncomfortable for you, I understand.  Turn the job over to me.  I absolutely do not mind in the least being called names and having your moral character questioned.  I note that even Ann Coulter has railed against your performance, asking if you’ve read John Lott’s book?

I haven’t read John’s book, and having exchanged e-mail once with him I find him to be a jerk.  You don’t need him, and neither do I.  And I can deal with Ann quite handily.

Or, perhaps you like your gig and want to keep it instead of turning it over to me.  Very well.  To you and Chris: Show  your backbone.  No compromise.  No prisoners.  No retreat.  Not … one … more … inch.

There is no end to the ugliness being spewed towards NRA’s Wayne LaPierre over his press briefing.  There are too many main stream media articles, blog posts and tweets to link, and frankly, I wouldn’t want to give them credit they don’t deserve by calling attention to any of them.

True enough, the job Wayne did wasn’t perfect.  David Codrea points out that it was a mistake to target video games.  I’m ambivalent about dragging into the mix anything but the root cause of evil, or the defeater of righteous self defense.  Good men and second amendment advocates will have different views of things, and I need not have my views synched with anyone else.  We don’t all have to agree on every jot and tittle of Wayne’s presser.

The main point of the statement is this: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”  It is this that so infuriates the progressives.  That Wayne didn’t bend on the issue of further restrictions on firearms and continues to oppose increased gun regulations is obscene to them.

They have tried to paint gun owners as somehow opposed to the NRA, with the NRA being the controlling, evil, monster that loves violence and death.  The followers, it would seem, are just deluded, confused, and drunk from the bloodlust.  If we could only break free from our evil masters, we could think more clearly.  Or so I assume they think.

The irony is that the NRA gets its authority from us, even when we disagree on the details.  Wayne isn’t persuading any of us to think differently than we did before.  The NRA gets its power from us, and with the exception of the details, Wayne is reading our talking points.  We oppose further restrictions on firearms.  We don’t believe that gun control works to stop crime, and we believe that you’re infringing on our freedoms when you legislate and regulate our gun rights away.

You think that because you look to your progressive idea-makers and leaders to know what to think, we do too.  But we’re not like you.  The irony is that when you say those things about Wayne LaPierre, you say them about all of us.  When you attack Wayne, you think there is one.  While this may seem terrifying to you, there are really about four million of us, and Wayne is only saying – in a mannerly way – what we all believe.