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Even ACLU Says NY AG Overstepped in Calling for End to NRA

August 31, 2020 by vagunrights

The ACLU’s Legal Director, David Cole, wrote in the Wall Street Journal last week that the NRA has a right to exist and, whether you agree with the NRA or not, we should all be concerned when a government official seeks to abolish an organization that speaks for millions of members.

Our democracy is premised on the right of association. The First Amendment protects not only the right to speak, but also to band together with others to advance one’s views. Making or resisting change in a democracy requires collective action, and a healthy democracy therefore demands a robust “civil society.” The right to associate can’t survive if officials can shut down organizations with which they disagree. The Supreme Court has notably invoked that right to protect union members, Communist Party adherents, the Boy Scouts and the NAACP.

And this isn’t the first time the ACLU has supported the NRA from a political attack:

That’s why two years ago, we supported the NRA’s lawsuit charging Gov. Cuomo with violating its First Amendment rights. Mr. Cuomo moved to dismiss the case, but a federal judge ruled against him, holding that if he targeted the NRA for its gun-promoting views, he violated its First Amendment rights.

And that’s why we believe Ms. James has also gone too far. Dissolution of a nonprofit is the most extreme remedy state regulators can seek. It has historically been reserved for organizations that are essentially false fronts for personal gain.

The ACLU is just the latest in organizations calling the New York Attorney General’s attack on the NRA a dangerous political game. The last time the ACLU came to the NRA’s defense it cost the ACLU in donations. It will likely do the same this time but the organization is showing that at least in this case, standing by the Constitution is more important than politics.

 

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House Committee Passes Magazine Ban, Other Gun Control

September 12, 2019 by vagunrights

Yesterday, the Democratic-led House of Representatives Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to approve three measures: a so-called red-flag bill, a ban on standard-capacity ammunition magazines (often miscalled “high-capacity”) for consideration by the full House and legislation to prohibit people convicted of violent hate crime misdemeanors from possessing firearms.  It’s all part of a coordinated strategy between House and Senate Democrats to put pressure on Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to allow a vote on gun control bills including so-called “universal” background check legislation that passed the House earlier this year.

Meanwhile, President Trump is being pressured to signal his support for “expanded” background checks (whatever that means) and so-called red flag laws.  Bearingarms.com editor Cam Edwards asks the question today whether President Trump will cave or “dance with the ones that brought him to the White House?”

H/T Cam Edwards

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NRA Stands Strong for Freedom

August 14, 2019 by vagunrights

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Kristen Gillibrand Wants to Make You a Criminal if You Don’t Comply with Compensated Confiscation

August 14, 2019 by vagunrights

Politico has the story here.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Wednesday suggested she supports a mandatory federal buyback program for assault weapons and criminal prosecution for gun owners who do not sell those firearms to the government — a measure the vast majority of her fellow 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have been reluctant to embrace.

“I think we should ban assault weapons as well as large magazines, and as part of passing that ban, do a buyback program across the country so that those who own them can be … compensated for their money that they spent. But I think both of those ideas are strong,” Gillibrand told CNN.

“You don’t want people to retain them because if you make them illegal, you don’t want to grandfather in all the assault weapons that are all across America,” Gillibrand said when pressed on whether such a buyback program should be mandatory. “You would like people to sell them back to the government so that you can make sure people who shouldn’t have access to these weapons couldn’t have them.”

Most of her fellow Democratic candidates for President favor a voluntary compensated confiscation program but New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker also support the proposal.

The Democrats have been emboldened since the most recent mass shootings.  They believe they have a majority of the public on their side helped by a willing media to spread the narrative created by the gun ban lobby.  It is up to us to effectively counter that with letters to the editor and by contacting our state and federal legislators.

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Media Repeats Gun Ban Lobby Narrative

August 7, 2019 by vagunrights

One of the strongest voices pushing back against the Democrats and the gun banners since this weekend’s shootings has been radio talk show host Mark Levin. I recommend you go back and listen to the entire podcast of Monday’s show and at least the first hour of last night’s program.  He started out last night with this:

The pressure is on to destroy the Second Amendment. If you believe President Trump is the reason that this mass shooting took place then why do you need to take away our weapons? All the Democrats need to do is defeat Trump, right? So why go after the Second Amendment? Because it’s a lie! Two domestic terrorists with socialist, racist and progressive views commit atrocious acts of terror and they continue to blame Trump. Despite one shooter’s support for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, they still blame Trump. The Democrats and the media endlessly lobby for more gun control without ever casting blame on themselves. Then, Joe Biden, Beto O’Rourke and others say they’re open to taking tyrannical measures to make the United States more like Australia (a gunless society). Every major communist and fascist in history gained control by eliminating everything we protect in our First and Second Amendments; speech, press, faith, and the right to keep and carry guns. Afterward, despite Trump’s multiple disavowal’s of white supremacy, Sen. Cory Booker and sympathizers in the media continue to malign Trump falsely accusing him of racism. It’s difficult to see if they even care about this shooting at all, or just relish in attacking Trump and the Second Amendment.

Gun owners are under attack on multiple fronts.  Republicans are caving under withering pressure.  Now is the time to call your congressmen and senators, even if they support gun control because they need to know your views.  Even if they don’t support our rights, they do keep track of he number of calls they get on an issue.

 

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Will More Gun Laws Stop Mass Shootings?

May 6, 2019 by vagunrights

Marsha Mercer has this op/ed in the Lynchburg News and Advance (it appeared in other newspapers as well) that discusses gun laws and the 2020 Presidential Race.  It regurgitates the questionable claim that 90 percent of the public supports so-called “universal” background checks (no ballot initiative trying to enact these have ever gotten more than 60% support and one in Maine actually failed to pass and got less than 50%).  She closes out the opinion piece with this:

No one wants more mass shootings. The 2020 campaigns and election offer us the chance to show we care enough to try to stop them.

Legal gun owners are not the problem and the restrictions mentioned would only apply to legal gun owners so exactly how would passing more gun control actually stop mass shootings?

 

 

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NRA Board Meeting at Annual Meeting

April 30, 2019 by vagunrights

Individuals wanting to see some change at the top of the NRA after months of media reports related to the organization’s finances and the relationship with their main PR firm were probably hopeful that these would be addressed by the Board during their meeting after the close of the just completed 148th Annual Meeting and Exhibits in Indianapolis .  We likely won’t find out what happened in the Board Meeting beyond what we already know, that Wayne LaPierre was unanimously reelected to his position as CEO and there is a new NRA President, longtime board member Carolyn Meadows.  Charles Cotton replaced Richard Childress as 1st Vice President and Virginian and Virginia Shooting Sports Association member Willes Lee was elected 2nd Vice President.  Almost the entire nine and a half hour meeting was held in closed session.  The public and NRA Members are not likely to know what transpired during that time because notes are not taken in meetings held in closed session.  I sit on two boards, the VSSA Board and my daughter’s school board and I previously held a position on a board of a Virginia public university.  All that is placed in the minutes related to things discussed in executive session are things like “the board went into closed session to discuss a personnel issue(s)” or similar matter.  For a complete run down on what transpired yesterday, I recommend Stephen Gutowski‘s Free Beacon article.

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Some NRA Board Members Question Value of NRATV

March 12, 2019 by vagunrights

Yesterday, the New York Times had this story on some of the NRA Board questioning what the Times referred to as “Incendiary Videos” that are produced by the ad company used by NRA and posted on the NRATV streaming web site.  At the heart of the piece is the ongoing saga of the financial position NRA finds itself in the Trump era, and what role NRATV has played in it.

Fifteen years ago, NRA created NRANews, a response to the McCain/Feingold campaign finance law that prohibited certain paid political speech, but gave a monopoly to media outlets through an exemption in the law.   Portions of the law were later ruled unconstitutional.

NRA rolled out the web based talk program called Cam and Company, featuring Cam Edwards, at it’s 2004 Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh and for three hours a day, they streamed the program on the web as well as aired live on satellite radio.  Over the course of the 15 years, the program aired at different times, originally from 2:00 – 5:00 pm, moving to 9:00 PM to midnight to accommodate satellite radio, then back to the 2:00 – 5:00 pm time slot when Sirius XM decided to air the program on tape delay.  During this time they also started making the program available by podcast and also made it available on ITunes and later IHeart Radio.  This meant that fans could listen to the program at their convenience and did not have to be near a computer to hear it live.

The program featured a mix of all things gun news and also covered conservative politics, as elected supporters of gun rights became more Republican and supporters among Democratic elected officials, at least at the national level, continued to dwindle.  It was also a vehicle to bring events like the Shot Show, NRA Annual Meetings, and the new Great American Outdoor show to people that may not have the ability to intend in person.

As the politics of gun rights changed, so too did the NRANews web site.  Besides airing Cam and Company, it also started to produce programing like Noir featuring YouTube gun aficionado Colion Noir, Love at First Shot – a program aimed at the growing number of women shooters, and promotional videos aimed at increasing membership.  While no one could accuse Edwards of being “incendiary” – he’s one of the nicest people you could meet – the mainstream media and gun ban supporters more and more began to criticize the “promotional videos” that way.  Late last year, amid reporting of cut backs at NRA, NRATV abruptly stopped airing Cam and Company and let some longtime staff go.  A revamped Cam and Company began airing again in January 2019 – a 30 minute program at 5:30 that leads into Dana Loesch’s 6:00 PM program.

The Times article notes that NRA provided the critiques from two prominent board members, including former NRA President Marion Hammer:

Since the founding of NRATV, some, including myself and other board members, have questioned the value of it,” Marion Hammer, the group’s most formidable lobbyist and a key adviser to its chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, said in a statement. “Wayne has told me and others that NRATV is being constantly evaluated — to make sure it works in the best interest of the organization and provides an appropriate return on investment.

Another Board Member,  Willes Lee of Virginia, said this:

It is clear to me that NRATV is an experiment and Wayne is evaluating the future of the enterprise,” Willes K. Lee, a board member who leads the N.R.A. Outreach Committee, said in a statement to The Times.

When NRANews transformed and first launched as NRATV, it could be viewed as the NRA entering the streaming arena, making it’s broader television programming – reruns of hunting and gun shows that had aired on Outdoor Channel – more readily available, in addition to the Cam and Company program.   It also became a vehicle to push out more political programming.

This observer believes there is some value to NRATV – the continued airing of Cam and Company as well as programming like Love at First Shots which features World Champion Shooter  Julie Golob.  It will be up to the Board to determine if NRATV can continue in a cost effective manner.

 

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Gun Control Advocate Says if Virginia GOP Continues to Embrace NRA, They Will Continue to Lose

November 28, 2018 by vagunrights

The Richmond Times Dispatch had this Op/Ed by Lori Haas, the Virginia director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and mother of a survivor of the 2007 Virginia Tech Shooting.  In the opinion piece, she says that Virginia Republicans have lost every state wide election since 2009 because they refuse to consider gun control, and that the NRA isn’t the legislative force that it used to be:

I’ve watched year after year as members of the Militia, Police, and Public Safety Committee have routinely ignored the pleas of gun violence survivors and prevention advocates by defeating popular, commonsense gun reform proposals.

It has become a disgusting and ludicrous ritual: the public pleads for change, subcommittee chairman Tommy Wright holds a moment of silence, and then the bill is defeated without further debate.

But the political landscape is changing. It’s been a long while since a National Rifle Association (NRA)-endorsed candidate has won a statewide election in Virginia.

In fact, by the time the commonwealth’s Senate and House of Delegates elections are held next year, it will have been a decade since an NRA-backed statewide candidate in Virginia has given a victory speech.

This is a dramatic shift — especially in the NRA’s home state. But it’s not necessarily surprising; Virginians are sick and tired of daily gun violence in their communities. The majority of Americans — including most gun owners — support stronger gun laws. It’s the people versus the NRA, and the people are winning.

While the gun lobby’s influence is withering, the gun violence prevention (GVP) movement in Virginia is stronger than it has ever been.

 

She goes on to detail that three pro-gun U.S. Representatives were defeated by women who were loud gun control supporters.  While I only saw the ads in one of the districts (VA 7th), other than Jennifer Wexton in the 10th, who had a long history of supporting gun control in the General Assembly, I don’t know that simply talking about it on your web site qualifies as being loud supporters.  Yes, they were all supported by the gun control groups but there were no gun control ads run for or by Abigail Spanberger in the 7th District and believe me, and I saw a lot of Spanberger ads during the campaign.

Yes, the demographics of Virginia are changing.  That just means that pro-rights supporters need to be proactive in our efforts to reach out to those folks and be smarter about our advocacy.  It doesn’t mean that we abandon the most effective pro-rights organization in the country.

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Anti-gun Coalition Seeks to Take Down Smith and Wesson From Within

September 6, 2018 by vagunrights

Townhall.com reports that a group of 11 Catholic groups have come together to purchase stock in Smith & Wesson. The group purchased 200 shares, the minimum number required to for shareholders to demand reports from the company.  Now, they want the gun manufacturer to provide a report that details what the company is doing to promote “gun safety measures” and “produce safer gun and gun products” like they did at a Ruger stockholders meeting earlier this year at a company stockholder meeting.

James Debney, the President and CEO of American Outdoor Brands Corporation, the parent company of Smith & Wesson responded:

“Unlike a bonafide investor, this proponent purchased just 200 shares, the bare minimum needed under SEC rules to place an item on the proxy with the sole objective to push an anti-firearms agenda, designed to harm our company, disrupt the local sale of our products and destroy stockholder value,” Debney said Thursday during a conference call with investors, Guns.com reported. “This proponent will gladly sacrifice its investments and yours to achieve its political objectives.”

Last night, Second Amendment Attorney Guy Relford talked with NRATV’s Dana Loesch about this latest move by the gun ban lobby to attack our rights.

 

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