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Posts Tagged ‘Cam and Company’

Large Number of First Time Gun Buyers are Women, Minorities

Posted in gun rights, Politics, tagged , , , , , on September 1, 2020| Leave a Comment »

If you Google “Gun Purchases and Women, Minorites”, you will come up with several stories in August that report a good portion of those 5 million new gun owners are first time gun owning women and minorities.  The National Shooting Sports Foundation reported last week:

NSSF surveys revealed that 58 percent of firearm purchases were among African American men and women, the largest increase of any demographic group. Women comprised 40 percent of first-time gun purchasers. Retailers noted that they are seeing a 95 percent increase in firearm sales and a 139 percent increase in ammunition sales over the same period in 2019.

These new gun owners make the gun community more diverse but the NSSF also said this is nothing new:

Against the backdrop of historically high firearm sales, one major theme is shattering misconceptions that America’s gun owners are “old white men.” A surge in gun buyers across the country in 2020, more than 2.5 million since March alone, has boosted the diversity of the firearm-owning population.

While surprising to some, it’s not to those in the firearm industry. Today’s gun buyer looks more like the rest of America. They represent all walks of life and those buying firearms today increasingly are women, minorities and more urban than in previous generations.

Yesterday,  Cam Edwards, editor of Bearingarms.com and the host of Cam and Company, spoke with Tony Simon who has hosted a Diversity Shoot at New Jersey gun range Gun for Hire for several years.  He had to move it this year due to New Jersey’s onerous Wuhan Virus restrictions but it will be held this month.

Tony told Cam he didn’t expect these new gun owners to become gun rights activists right away.  I tend to agree but even folks like Gun Talk Radio’s Tom Gresham has said he doesn’t think these new gun owners are going to want to ban the guns they just bought.  I’ve heard others in the firearms community say they think there is a chance some of these new gun owners will vote their rights.

If you are a woman and a new gun owner reading this, let me recommend A Girl and a Gun as a resource.  If you are African American and a new gun owner, let me recommend the National African American Gun Association and for everyone, I recommend the NRA.

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Some NRA Board Members Question Value of NRATV

Posted in gun rights, Politics, tagged , , , , on March 12, 2019| Leave a Comment »

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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1st District Congressman Rob Wittman Talks with NRATV About Preserving the 2nd Amendment

Posted in gun rights, hunting, Politics, tagged , , , on June 6, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Congressman Rob Wittman represents Virginia’s 1st District. He attended the 2017 Congressional Shoot-Out, presented each year by the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation. He is proud of the fantastic shooting, hunting and fishing opportunities in his district.  He talks about the importance of getting young people outdoors to expose them to hunting and the shooting sports. Preserving those and Second Amendment rights require that people exercise them, and have a great time while they are doing so. Originally aired on Cam & Co 05/17/17.

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9th Circuit Rules There is No Second Amendment Right to Concealed Carry

Posted in gun rights, Politics, tagged , , , , , on June 10, 2016| Leave a Comment »

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals finally ruled in the Peruta Case.  Originally, a three judge panel ruled that Sheriffs did not have the authority to arbitrarily refuse to grant permits to most citizens who applied for them, invalidating the “good reason” excuse that Sheriffs were using.  San Diego appealed to the full court.  That appeal was heard about a year ago.  The en banc court ruled  yesterday that there is no Second Amendment right for members of the general public to carry concealed firearms in public.” Andrew Langer president of the Institute for Liberty, an organization dedicated to promoting freedom and individual rights was on NRANews Cam and Company yesterday and discussed the ruling with host Cam Edwards.  He said the court deliberately bypassed California’s current infringement of Second Amendment rights. The dissent describes the decision as an “elaborate straw man argument” with regard to the “good cause” requirement. Langer says that the manner in which the decision was made is politically cynical. He questions whether the judges began writing the decision following the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The video below is about 25 minutes but is worth the time to watch.

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Concealed Handgun Permit Applications Continue to Rise

Posted in gun rights, Politics, tagged , , , on August 25, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Virginia residents continue to file into circuit courts throughout the state at a record pace this year, according to statistics from more than 50 jurisdictions analyzed by the Daily News-Record.  According to the News-Record, in 2007, the number of concealed-weapon permits issued jumped roughly 60 percent from the previous year in Virginia.  Numbers for the first six months of 2008, show that most jurisdictions are on pace to surpass those numbers.

My home county of Chesterfield, as well as Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties are all on pace to break records, according to local statistics. In Fairfax County, a locality that has some very anti-gun elected officials (Ken Cuccinelli being the exception), 1,501 have been issued in the first six months of 2008; last year, 2,201 were issued; and, in 2006, 1,449.

Texas and other states have seen similar increases.  While no one can say with certainly what is driving the increase, it is very possible that people have finally figured out that the job of the police is not to protect individuals, that the job of self defense is the responsibility of the individual.  High profile mass killings probably have also played a role in the increase.  Finally, politics may also be playing a role in the uptick in applications.  Vigilant gun owners know that the Supreme Court decision in D.C. vs Heller was razor thin.  The next president may appoint as many as three new justices so it is critical that a pro-rights candidate win this year.  That’s why gun owners must do all they can to insure that Barrack Obama does not march into the White House on January 20, 2009.

The Obama campaign spokesman in Virginia is disputing that politics has anything to do with the increase in permit applications.  Kevin Griffis, the Virginia communications director for the Obama campaign, told the News Record that there is no correlation between the increase in concealed-weapons permits and the presidential election, saying it’s “a Republican talking point.”

Griffs continued by calling the claim that Obama is anti-gun a “systematic smear effort by the NRA.”   He went on to call the NRA “an arm of the Republican Party.” Citing the fact that 2007 was not a presidential election year, he said the NRA saying that Obama is anti-gun is “just as absurd as the e-mails going around suggesting Barack is not Christian” and called the NRA claims in the advertisement false.

You can hear me discuss the increase in permit applications on NRANews’ Daily News with Ginny Simone at 5:00PM today.  The interview will likely replay on Cam and Company tonight around 9:40PM.

 

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