To: Rep. John Lesch, HD66B and closet authoritarian
From: Mitch Berg, Uppity Peasant
Re:  “Local Control”

Rep. Lesch,

Last week, at the House Public Safety Finance Committee hearings on the DFL’s various gun grab bills – the one that’d funnel all carry permit applications through the local police chief, if applicable, rather than the county sheriff – you kept repeating “it’s about local control”, as if you were one of those old pull-string toys with the little tape recorder inside.

Little story for ya, here, Leftenant.

Perhaps you recall; back in the bad ol’ days before the Minnesota Citizens Personal Protection Act, when we had a discretionary-issue system where getting a permit depended entirely on ones’ connections, one of the metro-area police chiefs – I think it was Bloomington – said he’d never, ever, ever, ever give out a permit to a common peasant (although he issued one to his wife, as memory serves).

Now, if citizens wanted to voice their displeasure at the transparent unfairness of the system, they had to organize a battle to win the mayor’s office – at whose pleasure the chief served.  Not the citizens’ – the mayor’s.   Which means you need to go a couple of levels of government removed from the citizen in the street to voice any meaningful dissent from the system.

But then the MPPA got passed. And the Sheriffs’ offices got the job, statewide.

And perhaps you remember this, Rep. Lesch:  your old buddy Bob Fletcher got caught denying three times as many permits as any other sheriff in the state, including Hennepin County.  And a huge percentage of those denials, when contested, were coming back losers for the County, costing Ramco a ton of money.

And it was us shooters – of all races, genders and social levels or, put briefly, the people – who were part of the coalition that tossed Fletcher from his job at the polls.

That – a law enforcement official who answers directly to us, as opposed to the local machine and bureaucracy – is what “local control” is.

That is all.

Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network – America’s first grass-roots talkradio show – brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism, as the Twin Cities media’s sole source of honesty!

• I’ll be at Gander Mountain in Lakeville from 1-3 today for a special broadcast sponsored by the United States Concealed Carry Association.  We’ll be interviewing “Armed American Radio” host Mark Walters, writer Ron Pincus, and firearms instructor Michael Martin, as well as Rob Doar from the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance about this past week’s hearings at the Capitol.
• Brad Carlson is back on “The Closer” from 1-3 tomorrow.  Tune on in!

(All times Central)

So tune in to all four hours of the Northern Alliance Radio Network, the Twin Cities’ media’s sole guardians of honest news. You have so many options:

• AM1280 in the Metro
• Streaming at AM1280’s Website,
• On Twitter (the Volume 2 show will use hashtag #narn2)
• Check out our new UStream video and chat . (Sunday only)
• Send us an SMS text message – 651-243-0390
• Good ol’ telephone – 651-289-4488!
• Podcasts are now available; for my show and for Brad’s
• And make sure you fan us on our new Facebook page!

Join us!

Don’t forget – the Northern Alliance Radio Network will have a very special live broadcast tomorrow out at Gander Mountain in Lakeville.

The show will be sponsored by the US Concealed Carry Assocation.  We’ll have quite a few special guests, including Armed American Radio host Mark Walters, firearms instructor Michael Martin, and perhaps some special guests.

Join us out at Gander Mountain in Lakeville from 1-3 PM tomorrow…

View Larger Map

…or on AM1280 The Patriot!

I was down at the Capitol last night watching Representative Martens testify.  My friend AVERY LIBRELLE was there, wearing a “Freedom not to get Shot” button.

LIBRELLE:  Gun violence is out of control!  We need fewer guns on the street!

ME: Well, no.  It’s down by nearly half in the past twenty years, as the number of civilian guns has grown by nearly half.   In fact, the gun crime rate is dropping pretty much every where but in places like Chicago, which continue to defy the Supreme Court and the Constitution and ban civilian gun ownership by the law-abiding citizen.

LIBRELLE!  Hah!  We won’t stop crime in Chicago until we have a comprehensive national policy on guns!

ME: So you’re saying Chicago’s murder rate is the fault of Indiana, Wisconsin and downstate Illinois?

LIBRELLE: Yes! Those guns in Chicago come from outside the city where guns are legal!

ME:  So if “availability of guns” is the problem, then why isn’t crime in all those other areas also booming?

LIBRELLE:  You support slavery, don’t you?

(And SCENE).

As we noted this morning, most of the DFL representatives on the Public Safety Finance committee spent a good chunk of the time during yesterday’s hearings not listening to testimony about the gun grab bills their caucus was copying and pasting from Andrew Cuomo introducing, and letting a registered lobbyist sit in for one of them.

And then there was this; a Second Amendment activist (writing on Facebook) noted that he approached Duluth DFLer Erik Simonson – who introduced a dumb gun control bill of his own, of which more later – about a bill to “ban body armor” – based on the canard that mass-murderers just love to use body armor.  The bill is written so broadly that it’d include – and require a $100 fee and a background check – protective gear for motorcyclists, paintball players, snowmobilers and, near as I can tell from reading the bill, Highland drummers (whose drumheads are made of Kevlar these days).

The activist went to Simonson (I’ll add emphasis):

I approached Rep Simonson after the hearing in a very polite manner and introduced myself. I told him that some snowmobile and motorcycle jackets not only contain Kevlar but state it right on them. Helmets are made of Kevlar and I believe but am not sure paintball jackets could have Kevlar in them. The Rep said “I am not going down that road. I am not going to have a bunch of exemptions carved out”. I replied “So you want me to have to pay a $100 dollar fee to register my snowmobile jacket? Very curtly he said “I am not going down that road” and turned away…

In other words, “Don’t bother me with the details, peasant!”.

So many questions.  Did Representative Simonson even know what was in “his” bill?  Because all of the DFL’s raft of gun grab bills read like they were cribbed from someone else.  Andrew Cuomo, maybe?

And all of you snowmobilers, Highland drummers, paintballers, and industrial protective equipment users?  You need to contact Rep. Simonson.  His number is 651-296-4246; call him (email doesn’t have enough impact these days).

Ask him.

Especially all of you snowmobilers, motorcyclists and industrial protective equipment users in Duluth.  To say nothing of Second Amendment supporters.

Aren’t the Democrats the ones who complain that their opposition is in the back pocket of lobbyists?

We’ll come back to that.

We’ll also come back to this:  until redistricting last February, I spent close to two decades in the old House District 66B, which was represented by long-time DFLer and teachers union mouthpiece Alice Hausman.

Hausman, speaking at an event for which she apparently couldn’t find a lobbyist to substitute for her.

Republicans in the district used to call her “Alice The Phantom”, because she was rarely seen out and about in the district, except for the odd photo op.  Redistricting put her in 66A – but she’s the same Alice Hausman she ever was.

Like I said, we’ll be back.

——–

I went to the Capitol last night.  As usual, the number of pro-Second Amendment people dwarfed the number of orcs – in the overflow room I was in, it was 100 to about five, and that was much closer than it usually gets.

While all of the Republicans on the Public Safety committee stayed through the full three days of testimony, a variety of the DFLers picked up and left the hearings.

Hearings for the bills their people were introducing.  Representative  Hilstrom, Savick, Schoen,  Simonson and Slocum were largely absent from the morning’s testimony – at least, testimony from opponents of the gun grab bills.  I’m going to hazard a guess they’re present for the votes.

But more egregiously, Representative Hausman was absent for the readings of both of her gun grab bills – the magazine capacity bill and the “assault weapon” grab.   Which is not uncommon in the House; Reps have busy schedules, and it’s not uncommon for other representatives to fill in for them.

So who read Hausman’s gun grab bills?

Heather Martens, “executive director” (and, likely one of about three actual members, and that’s being charitable and assuming that they don’t actually charge to be members) of “Protect Minnesota”.

Heather Martens, exploiting an earlier crime victim in front of the Minnesota House.

(No, I’m not kidding.  The late Joel Rosenberg used to tell stories of going to “Citizens for a “Safer” Supine Minnesota meetings – Martens had to rename the group again after what was left of CSM’s credibility evaporated a few years back – where Martens presided over a table with nothing but Second Amendment activist ringers.  Not a single actual gun-grabber showed up for these meetings)

Martens – who, as has been noted in this space for the past decade, rarely if ever says a single truthful or factual word about the gun issue in public – read both of the bills to the committee for the record.  It’s the job the Representative is supposed to do.

This was brought up to Michael Paymar, the committee chairman.  He said it was fairly common for people to fill in for Representatives in front of the committee.

Which may or may not be true, but I’m going to hazard a guess that those people who fill in are almost never registered lobbyists.

I say “almost never”, because it’s against the House of Representatives’ purported “Permanent Rules“:

2.39 EXECUTIVE BRANCH OR LOBBYIST PRESENCE IN COMMITTEE. No House committee, division or subcommittee shall permit any member or staff of the executive branch, registered lobbyist, or lobbyist principal, to be seated at the committee table with members of the House during official proceedings of committees of the House.

“Presenting a bill to the committee” certainly counts as being “seated at the table with members of the House”.

So the facts are these:

• Representative Hausman was absent – according to staff, off doing non-House business – during the introduction of not just one but both of her gun grab bills
• Both of her bills were read by a registered lobbyist
• If a Republican had done this, there’d be an uproar
• BONUS FACT:  After all of the DFL’s whinging about “model bills” last year, in an attempt to impugn ALEC, all of the DFL’s gun grab bills are cribbed from legislation in other states, and are pretty obviously not just model bills, but really stupid ones

So there you go, District 66A. Your voice has been given over to a special interest group.

Are you proud today?

Numerous reports from the Capitol today indicate that Minneapolis 5th Ward Councilman Don Samuels brought a group of school children from Minneapolis to the Capitol to help the DFL pack the hearing rooms at the Paymar/Hausman gun grab hearings.

One correspondent wrote on Facebook:

The children Don Samuelson exploited, I witnessed holding paper signs saying, among other things, “No Guns” as they left the building.

I’m waiting on more photos from the Capitol.

Anyone recognize what school it is that’s sending kids, during the school day, to serve as DFL campaign props?

Twenty-odd years ago, when I first got involved in Second Amendment politics, the DFL controlled both chambers of the Legislature and the Governor’s office as well.

And so there was a constant tug of war every time a putative gun control measure came up.  Real Americans from greater Minnesota would pack hearings at the Capitol to oppose the bills.  So the DFL would jockey the hearing times, dates and places around to try to shake off as many outstate voters as possible.

It worked, to an extent; the Real Americans would only outnumber the orcs 600:20 instead of 1200:20.

In the days before there was an internet, that took some doing.

Today?

There are more hearings  planned for 10AM and 6PM today.  For the latest information, go here.

Democracy.  To the 2nd Amendment movement – it’s about showing up and being counted.  To the DFL, it’s about keeping the wrong people from showing up.

Remember – Saturday’s our special broadcast at Gander Mountain in Lakeville.

We’ll be out at Gander Mountain doing a special broadcast sponsored by the US Concealed Carry Assocation.  We’ll have a bunch of special guests, including Armed American Radio host Mark Walters, firearms instructor Michael Martin, and perhaps some special guests (again, probably not including Ted Nugent)

(Neither confirming nor denying) .

Join us out at Gander Mountain in Lakeville from 1-3 PM on Saturday…

View Larger Map

…or on AM1280 The Patriot!

David Brauer of the MinnPost – which seems to be peeling more of the wrapper off the idea that it’s a partisan DFL PR site every week, perhaps filling the “void” the Minnesota “Independent” left – tweeted about the crowd at the hearings for the Paymar Gun Grab yesterday:

#stuffwhitepeoplelike “@hartbeat11: Rm 10 at MN SOB filled with people interested in gun legislation.campl.us/nToK”

— David Brauer (@dbrauer) February 5, 2013

Now, David’s a good guy.  About as white as they get, by the way, but I do try to focus on the content of mens’ souls rather than the color of their skin.  Not sure where I got that.  But I digress.

I thought about responding…:

#StuffWhitePeopleLike – see also “Any MinnPost columnist or staff meeting.

Because it is hilarious – southwest Minneapolitan Brauer, at the head of a staff of middle-class, NPR-listening, Volvo/Subaru/Prius-driving U of M/Saint Olaf/Carlton/St. Thomas grads that is more Caucasoid than the Hutchinson Rotary Club, yipping about the skin color of Second Amendment activists?

As is often the case, Nancy LaRoche had a better idea:

 

.@dbrauer: You should visit Bill’s Range in Robbinsdale, then retract that silly #stuffwhitepeoplelike hashtag.

— Nancy LaRoche (@nwlaroche) February 5, 2013

Brauer’s defense – everyone on both sides was white, and it’s “interesting who got defensive”.

Because the role of journalists is to “afflict those who are peevish about being perpetually slandered”, I guess.  Especially as the Twin Cities’ media aids and abets the DFL in setting up the debate over Paymar’s gun grab bills as a contest between poor, beset, multiracial urban Minnesota and white, callous, redneck outstate Minnesota.

I’m glad I stopped caring about politics.

Think of it: I was spared writing about the last legislative election, an event so vacuous it made reality TV seem interesting. If there was any serious discussion of an important national issue — the state economy, the level of control outside lobbying groups have over both parties but especially the DFL, the fact that the “Stadium Deal” is built on sand, Minnesota’s deteriorating education system, the impact of Governor Messinger’s Dayton’s tax plan outstate, the ongoing embarassment is Gopher football — I missed it.

Instead, we got a campaign of misrepresentations, exaggerations and outright lies. The DFL were by far the worst offenders, but the GOP field didn’t distinguish themselves either.

But hey, that’s Minnesota politics.

But then the fortieth anniversary ofRoe V. Wade happened.  A sudden societal change in focus from eternal truths to personal convenience and a razor-thin definition of gender rights ended up in the massacre of tens of millions of humans whose only crime was not being able to pay taxes yet.

And the very air changed. Winter – the most wonderful time of the year – suddenly turned somber. You looked at the small children around you differently, like you look at Auschwitz survivors; miracles who somehow evaded a bloody gauntlet.

Obama struck that note in his moving speech at the Newtown memorial service, for another, much smaller group of child victims who at least got to live outside the womb for a little bit. Speaking for us all, he said: “We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change.”

Nice words, but somehow not enough. Not nearly enough.

That’s when I figured I should write a blog post about it. During my 11-year career, every time some demented soul would defend the Democrats’ civil sacrament of Infanticide, I’d get up on my soap box and let loose with a withering diatribe about abortion, the National Organization of Womyn and weak-kneed feminist-lobby-upsucking politicians. Did it about 130 times, give or take.

And in every case the main effect was – nothing.  Certainly not the outcome I’d hoped for.

Still, I thought I’d give it one more stab … er, chance.

Obama’s speech – which some saw as unrelated, but dead children are dead children are dead children, baby – was fine as far as it went, but it didn’t go very far. Neither have any of the other responses I’ve heard.

South Dakota state senator Mike Rounds introduced a bill to institute a waiting period in SoDak for abortions.   Great, but the bill wouldn’t directly prevent abortions, or exact any vengeance for the tens of millions already murdered.

Tens of millions!

The thing missing from the Abortion debate so far is anger — anger that we live in a society where tens of millions of little human beings, each of no less moral weight than any of you reading this blog, can disappear into the Nacht und Nebel and all politicians are worried about is offending our society’s Sandra Flukes.

That’s obscene. Here, then, is my “madder-than-hell-and-I’m-not-going-to-take-it-anymore” program for ending abortion in America:

• Repeal Roe V. Wade and all law based upon it. Roe is badly written and just plain bad law, and more trouble than it’s worth. It offers an absolute right to abortion, but does it in by digging up eminating penumbras, which is an absurd extension of civil rights.  We haven’t had a convention to find all the other emanating penumbras.  And surely our founding fathers, whatever they were emanating, didn’t picture the eugenics industry we have in this country today.  Abortion should be an emergency treatment, not a right.
• Declare Planned Parenthood a terrorist organization and make membership illegal. Hey! We did it to the Communist Party, and PP has killed as many people as Stalin did.  (I would also raze the organization’s headquarters, clear the rubble and salt the earth, but that’s optional). Make abortion a felony. If some people refused to stop performing them, performing a 150th-trimester one on them, using the same tools they use to scrape “fetuses” out of uteri works for me.
• Then I would tie Terry O’Neill of the NOW and  and Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood to the back of a morgue van and drag them around a parking lot until they saw the light on abortion.

And if that didn’t work, I’d adopt radical measures. None of that is going to happen, of course. But I’ll bet abortion will drop.

(more…)

To: President Obama
From: Mitch Berg, Cranky Peasant
Re: Your visit.

Mr. President,

Your visit to the Twin Cities yesterday, the media assures us, was not just because it was yet another city that is utterly safe territory for you.  It’s because, supposedly, Minneapolis is a leader in “curbing gun violence”.

Let’s put it on the table.

While Minneapolis has the highest violent crime rate in Minnesota, its crime rates have been dropping over the years not because of anything the Minneapolis DFL establishment has done – they have been utterly useless, in fact – but because Minnesota is, despite being a purple-addled state, a very gun-friendly place.  State law prohibits cities from having different gun laws from the rest of the state – and the rest of the state is as solidly pro-Second-Amendment as anyplace west of the Mississippi.  We have good, solid carry permit law; law-abiding Minnesotans aren’t harried by excessive stupid laws…

…like people in your native, crime-ridden Chicago are, and like you want the rest of us to be.

Minneapolis, along with Saint Paul, are the parts of this state that most aggressively hassle gun law-abiding gun owners.  Left to their own devices, both would happily turn into little Chicagos (in more ways than just guns).  And they are the parts with the most crime.

That, as they say, is all.

(PS – Well, OK – not “all”.  Henco Sheriff Stanek actually has the right idea:

As a strong supporter of the 2nd amendment, Sheriff Stanek talked about how the problem is one of access.

“Gun ownership isn’t a privilege, it’s a right guaranteed by the Constitution,” said Sheriff Stanek. “We have an access problem; people already prohibited by law from owning or buying a gun should never have access to firearms. We shouldn’t impose on the rights of law abiding citizens to try to solve this problem. Gun control alone will not solve the complex problem of guns and extreme violence.”

Indeed, as Chicago shows us, it’ll only make it worse).

A constituent of Michael Paymar’s writes:

Michael’s domestic partner, Laura Goodman, is a former police officer and now head of security at St Kates.

I think Micheal needs to be asked if there are any semi-automatic handguns in his home and how large are the magazines?

Maybe Ms. Goodman owns nothing but M1911s!

The Northern Alliance Radio Network will have a very special live broadcast next Saturday.

We’ll be out at Gander Mountain in Lakeville (I’ll be out there scouring for ammo anyway) in a special broadcast sponsored by the US Concealed Carry Assocation.  We’ll have a whole slew of special guests, including Armed American Radio host Mark Walters, firearms instructor Michael Martin, and perhaps some special guests (probably not including Ted Nugent)

(I said probably) .

Join us out at Gander Mountain in Lakeville from 1-3 PM on Saturday…

View Larger Map

…or on AM1280 The Patriot!

If this Atlanta woman had had a gun with only seven rounds in the magazine…

The woman was getting out of the shower when she was met by a strange man with a kitchen knife, police said. They said there was a struggle in the bathroom, and she fell in the tub. Police later identified the man as Israel Perez Puentes, a Cuban national who lived in Alpharetta.

“The male was armed with a kitchen knife, a struggle ensued between the two of them. She fell in the bathtub injuring herself,” Gwinnett police spokesman Edwin Ritter said.

The woman tried to fight the man off with a shower a rod, and he forced her into her bedroom, police said. They said she told her attacker she had money in the room. But she grabbed a .22-caliber handgun and shot the man nine times, police said.

Police said the man ran out of a back door and collapsed in the yard. He later died at the Gwinnett Medical Center. The victim, who was injured in the scuffle, was also taken to the hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries. Police have not released her name.

…she might very well know what a Thanksgiving turkey feels like.

If a thanksgiving turkey knows what it’s like to be raped and then stabbed.

Point being, there are times – and they are not uncommon – when seven shots just aren’t enough.

The DFL’s latest gun grab bill – the first after a couple of fairly sensible decades, gun-wise – includes some surprises.

The bill demands that all magazines of greater than seven rounds be surrendered to law enforcement or sent out of state by August 13, 2013.  Here’s the language:

Subd. 12. Large-capacity magazine. “Large-capacity magazine” means any ammunition feeding device with the capacity to accept more than seven rounds, or any conversion kit, part, or combination of parts, from which this type of device can be assembled if those parts are in the possession or under the control of the same person. The term does not include any of the following: (1) a feeding device that has been permanently altered so that it cannot accommodate more than seven rounds; (2) a .22 caliber tube ammunition feeding device; or a tubular magazine that is contained in a lever-action firearm.

What does that very, very broad definition cover?

Oh, it’s aimed at your semi-automatic handguns and rifles – the left’s current boogeyman du jour.

But there’s no exception in the language for, say, the Garand that Grampa brought home from World War 2:

It’s got an eight round magazine; the magazine is built into the rifle – the language doesn’t exempt integral box magazines – so there’s no way to modify it.  Cough it up, “gun nut”.

Or if Grampa was a REMF?  Yep – his M1 Carbine with its fifteen round box as well:

Work out on a farm?  Not only your Ruger Mini-14 that you keep for varmints…:

…but the Ruger 10/22 that you teach your kids to plink with (ten rounds, and no, there’s no practical way to modify it.

Are you a self-defense shooter?  Not only is your SIG 239 – eight rounds, not seven – on the block, but some revolvers hold eight or nine or 12 rounds, from .22 plinkers up to the Smith and Wesson 627:

There’s no language exempting revolvers!

Or shotguns.  Your Mossberg Model 500 duck gun – which holds eight rounds in a tube under the barrel – is trayf.  “Paymar’s” bill only exempts tube mags if they’re .22 caliber, or on a lever-action piece.

So the duck gun is out, but this…

…a Henry Comanchero holding fifteen rounds, is legal.

Why, it’s almost as if this bill was a piece of “model” legislation from some gun-grabber group or another.

As our liberal plutocrat elites surround themselves with armed guards, and as Janet Napolitano arms her federal apparatchiks to the teeth to send them after your guns (assuming Senator Feinswine and Barack Rex get their way), she tells you – mere peasants that you are – that if you, heaven forfend, are involved in a mass shooting, you can defend your life…

…with scissors.

This is what you, mere peasant, are worth to The Regime.

Make no mistake; some resistance is better than none.  Anything that breaks a mass shooter out of their fantasy helps.  Flight 93 showed us that resistance to madness is better than meek submission.

Unfortunately, the old saw “never bring scissors to a gun fight” exists for a reason.  The passengers of Flight 93 are dead heroes.

Far better to resist a mass shooter with a gun.  Every time.  I’ll take being a live schlub playing with his granddaughter over being a dead hero any day.

They’re baaaaaaack:

House Public Safety Committee Chairman Michael Paymar, a long-time anti-gun advocate, plans to hold committee hearings on his gun control proposals beginning at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, February 5 through Thursday, February 7 in State Office Building Room 10.

The Metrocrats – as opposed to the outstate DFLers – certainly think they smell blood in the water; this is the first time in I think 15 years they’ve seriously considered broaching new victim disarmament legislation.

The press release – from the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance – notes:

At this time, none of his gun control legislation has been introduced. However, the NRA understands that Paymar’s gun control bills will likely be introduced later this week or early next week and include, at a minimum, the following attacks on our Second Amendment rights:

Paymar’s proposal hits the usual boogeymen:

• A proposed ban on Ugly Guns:  Paymar would ban firearms with scary military-looking cosmetic features
• Big Magazines: Paymar would force spree killers to carry 2-3 times as many magazines as they do before going on a shooting spree (and force law-abiding homeowners and citizens to reload 2-3 times as often if they are beset by determined, dissociative or chemically motivated attackers).
• Private Transfers:  While even some Second Amendment people think this – requiring all purchases to go through a federally-licensed firearms dealer (FFL), to close the non-existant “gun show loophole” – thinks this doesn’t sound too noxious on the surface, its byproduct -a paper trail for all guns – makes the next step, universal registration, trivially easy.

All three are, of course, utterly useless for curbing any kind of crime.  That’s why the proper term for such measures is Victim Disarmament, not “Gun Control”.

And at first blush, it looks grim:  the Public Safety Committee is 10 DFLers and 8 Republicans.
But there’s more to it than that.

So Here’s What Real Americans Need To Do

There are three real factions on the Democrat-controlled House Public Safety Committee

The first is the Republicans.  They all should get a call – especially if you are one of their constituents – to encourage them to stand up for what’s right, and thank them (if applicable) for their past support.

Representative Tony Cornish (R) – Republican Lead: 651-296-4240
E-mail: rep.tony.cornish@house.mn

Representative Debra Hilstrom (DFL): 651-296-3709
E-mail: rep.debra.hilstrom@house.mn

Representative Brian Johnson (R): 651-296-4346
E-mail: rep.brian.johnson@house.mn

Representative Tim Kelly (R): 651-296-8635
E-mail: rep.tim.kelly@house.mn

Representative Jim Newberger (R): 651-296-2451
E-mail: rep.jim.newberger@house.mn

Representative Andrea Kieffer (R): 651-296-1147
E-mail: rep.andrea.kieffer@house.mn

Representative Kathy Lohmer (R): 651-296-4244
E-mail: rep.kathy.lohmer@house.mn

Representative Mark Uglem (R): 651-296-5513
E-mail: rep.mark.uglem@house.mn

The next faction is the Metrocrats.  They’re mostly hopeless; they’re in office because Alida Messinger and her liberal plutocrat friends paid good money, and lots of it, for a bleeding-heart knee-jerk liberal government with all the baggage it brings.  Victim Disarmament, to these people, is not negotiable.

If you’re a constituent, of course, a phone call wouldn’t hurt; they need to know that their opposition is everywhere.  And a quick reminder of what bills like theirs did to the DFL in 1994 and 2002 might not hurt, either.

Representative Michael Paymar (DFL) – Chairman: 651-296-4199
E-mail: rep.michael.paymar@house.mn

Representative John Lesch (DFL): 651-296-4224
E-mail: rep.john.lesch@house.mn

Representative Joe Mullery (DFL): 651-296-4262
E-mail: rep.joe.mullery@house.mn

Representative Steve Simon (DFL): 651-296-9889
E-mail: rep.steve.simon@house.mn

Representative Erik Simonson (DFL): 651-296-4246
E-mail: rep.erik.simonson@house.mn

Representative Linda Slocum (DFL): 651-296-7158
E-mail: rep.linda.slocum@house.mn

Representative Dan Schoen (DFL): 651-296-4342
E-mail: rep.dan.schoen@house.mn

So when you break the committee down, it’s actually 8 Real Americans to 7 Orcs.

But here’s the important part:

Representative Paul Rosenthal (DFL) – Vice Chairman: 651-296-7803
E-mail: rep.paul.rosenthal@house.mn

Representative Shannon Savick (DFL): 651-296-8216
E-mail: rep.shannon.savick@house.mn

Representative John Ward (DFL): 651-296-4333
E-mail: rep.john.ward@house.mn

UPDATE:  As Colonel Flagg noted in the comments, let’s add:

Representative Erik Simonson (DFL): 651-296-4246
E-mail: rep.erik.simonson@house.mn

That’s two DFLers – Savick and Ward – from outstate districts that are chock full of Real Americans, both independent and DFL as well as GOP, who take the Second Amendment seriously, the very type of DFLers that were mowed down in droves in 2002 unless they broke with the Metrocrats.

And Rosenthal, who won on a one-time surge of DFL voters in a very purple district, who can’t afford to take Real American votes for granted in the much-more-normal year coming up in 2014.

And a polite, reasoned phone call reminding them that there are a lot of us out there in both parties who take our Second Amendment civil rights seriously, as well as those history lessons from 1994 and 2002, might just go a long way toward euthanizing Paymar’s authoritarian dabbling in its crib where it belongs.

Any questions?

Your mission is clear.

Over this past six weeks of fairly constant writing about Second Amendment issues, it’s occurred to me that I’ve been letting the Orcs drive the discussion by controlling the language involved.

It’s time to roll that back with extreme prejudice.

So from now on on this blog and in all personal and public discourse on the matter, the following terms shall be used, with the following meanings:

That is all.

Emboldened by Betty McCollum’s plaintive cry for a “dialog”, I met my DFLer friend, AVERY LIBRELLE.  Avery was just coming out of point-chanting practice at the Union building in downtown Saint Paul; we decided to have a dialog over a drink or two at the St. Paul Hotel.

MITCH:  OK, a dialog about guns.  OK, I’ll start by pre-empting one inevitable strawman; there are gun controls that actually reduce crime.  They include keeping guns out of the hands of felons, and ramping up the sentences for gun crimes.  They’re the measures the “Gun Lobby”, including but not limited to the NRA, have worked for.  And they’ve worked.

LIBRELLE:  The NRA is a terrorist group.

MITCH:  Um…well, no.  It’s an industry and hobby group that does some lobbying.

LIBRELLE:  They are owned by the gun industry.

MITCH:  The firearms industry certainly donates money to the NRA, since they are the biggest, baddest group fighting for their right to do business.  They have the right to do that.  But the NRA has always been one of America’s biggest grass-roots organizations.  And it’s only getting bigger; it’s up 500,000 in the past six weeks.  And that’s people who pay $35, at least, for a year; not a ton of money, but not inconsiderable in these tough times, either.  And that’s up from 3 million in 1990.

LIBRELLE:  Guns are out of control!
MITCH:  Er, no.  Violent crime is steadily falling, even as the number of guns in society approaches one for every American.  Gun crimes are down nearly 50% in the past 20 years, along with crime in general.  And the NRA worked with sensible politicians on both sides of the aisle to make that happen.    In other words, the NRA has always supported gun controls that actually work – by attacking criminals, not the law-abiding.
LIBRELLE:  But mass shootings are out of control!

MITCH:  Well, no – media coverage notwithstanding, they’re actually less common than they were 20 years ago.  In fact, the worst year for mass shootings was…1929.

LIBRELLE:  But we have to dooooooo something.

MITCH:  We’ve done something.  It’s been working.  It’s just that we haven’t done the “something” that our media establishment and its’ left-of-center political benefactors want.
 LIBRELLE:  We have to control guns.  Period.

MITCH:  Did you just use “Period” to try to prove a point?

LIBRELLE:  Guns are out of control.

MITCH:  Er, where do you get this?

LIBRELLE:  You’re crazy.

MITCH:  Um – what now?  We’re having a dialog, right?  And yet all you’ve done is recite chanting points and long-debunked stats.

LIBRELLE:  I bet you’re compensating for something.  If you know what I mean.

MITCH:  Yep.  Compensating for the fact that there is evil in this world, yadda yadda.

LIBRELLE: You’re just a cranky middle-aged bald white guy.

MITCH:  And the last I checked the Constitution applies to us too.  So – do you have any actual facts to bring to this “dialog?”

LIBRELLE:  The NRA are fascists.

MITCH:  So in response to decades of patiently-assembled facts that support my case, you have ad-homina and chanting points?

LIBRELLE:  You’re cray-cray.

MITCH:  That’s not, technically, “dialog”.

LIBRELLE:  Why do you hate children.

MITCH:  This isn’t dialog.  This is me debating, you trying to trash me.

LIBRELLE:  Now you’re having a melt-down.

MITCH:  Don’t flatter yourself.

LIBRELLE:  I should wear a flak jacket.  You may try to kill me.

MITCH:  That’s nuts.

LIBRELLE:  Oh, now you’re attacking me personally!  There’s no way to have a dialog with you gun nuts!

(And SCENE)

The same day the Obama Administration moved to open up combat roles to women, Representative Carolyn McCarthy – yet another worthless New York congressorc – appeared with Piers Morgan:

PIERS MORGAN: I have an interview coming up with two young women who wrote a piece in which they said they wanted the rights of the AR-15 weapon at home because they feared they would be attacked and they wanted a gun that would guarantee they would murder or would kill their attacker. How do you respond to that particular argument, which is they believe under their second amendment right they should be allowed an AR-15?

 

Hon? You should try a lighter rifle. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (Orc – NY) says you’re too weak and ineffective.  Oh, yeah – that’s an “M16”, which is like an AR15, but fires full-automatic, like a machine gun, which is shorthand for “more testosterone than Chuckles Schumer has ever had”.

CAROLYN MCCARTHY: I will tell you, if you talk to professionals, hunters and certainly sportsmen, they’ll tell you that’s not the gun to use. A rifle is more accurate. It’s certainly easier for a woman to be able to do that.

Heyyyyy! That’s a woman! And she’s hunting! With an AR15! And she shot a buck – call Naomi Wolf, we’ve got symbolism on aisle 15!

Oops, sounds like someone mixed up her chanting points.  The 2nd Amendment isn’t about hunting.  And while an AR15 isn’t everyone’s first choice for a home defense gun – too much overpenetration for my taste, but I live in the city – it’s not a bad one, either, objectively.

Not only are those women – Israelis, in this case – but those are all M16s, too.  Six women with fully-automatic weapons.  Doesn’t Rep. McCarthy seem a bit like an Iranian Mullah in comparison?

And one wonders if Rep. McCarthy knows that not only is the AR15 a rifle, and one of the most popular hunting rifles in most states, but also one of the lightest, lowest-recoil and easiest-handling rifles anywhere in the gun business?

It’s Lyudmila Pavlichenko. And she’s carrying a “real” rifle, a Nagant M93. Which has about double the hitting power of an AR15, and is great for going after elk, but not normally ideal for inside-the-home defense. However, I wouldn’t invade Ms. Pavlichenko’s home; she had 309 confirmed kills in under a year during World War 2. The USSR, like the Israelis, used female snipers alongside the guys. Pavchenko was the top scorer.  I bet she could pick your nose with an AR15, too. Oh, yeah – and she had a masters in literature!

At any rate, Rep. McCarthy, leave the thinking to the smart women.

Women of the 101st Airborne with, you guessed it, M16s.

Many of whom are shooters.

.Yesterday in this space, we watched Betty McCollum at a town hall in Oakdale  repeatedly declaim that she wanted to see a “dialog” between Real Americans and the gun-grabbers.

I had all sorts of suggestions – but I wondered; what does “dialog” mean to Representative McCollum?

I got a copy of the letter she’s been sending her supporters:

Sadly over the past several years, far too many innocent American children, women and men have been the victims of gun violence. The sobering statistics about gun violence speak volumes. According to the U.S. Census, of the 129,741 murders that were reported between 2000 and 2008, nearly two-thirds of the victims were killed by a firearm. Every year nearly 100,000 people in America are shot or killed with a gun according to the Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence. Every day, 270 people in America – 47 of them children and teens – are injured or slain due to gun violence.

If this is what she’s bringing to the “dialog”, I’m afraid she’s not trying all that hard to “communicate”:

• Why show eight years of murder stats in one place?  To avoid showing that the gun murder rate is sharply down .
• Where did most of those shootings come from?  A criminal was involved – as the shooter, the target or both – in the vast majority of them.
• The Brady Factory uses stats that cuts off “Children and Teens” at age 19.  Plenty of 18-19 year olds are not only not “children”, they are criminals and gang-bangers, and doing plenty of shooting and getting shot at.

I may not be an elected representative, but where I come from “dialog” is best when it isn’t “one side spewing BS and the other side constantly correcting them”.

Oh, yeah – here’s more “dialog”:

Nonetheless voices like the NRA will do everything to protect guns rather than the lives of our children and law enforcement officers. I have consistently opposed the NRA and their extremist agenda and will continue to do so. As a result of this work I have received an ‘F’ rating from the NRA.

Keep up the “dialog”, Rep. McCollum.  Your seat is safe – for now – so you can do it

But let’s extend the “dialog” to some outstate DFLers.

Tim Walz and Collin Peterson:  do you agree with Rep. McCollum?

How about you, Patti Fritz and David Bly and Zac Dorholt and David Bly and all you other outstate DFLers?  How’s Rep. McCollum’s idea of “dialog” sound to you?  Kinda…extreme?  Is this what you plan on taking to your constituents next year?

Not sure if the President is going to have this sheriff standing behind him glowering at the audience the next time he announces a gun control bill…

…but we need a lot more like him.

To: Rep. Betty McCollum
From: Mitch Berg, Peasant
Re:  Mission Accomplished!

Rep. McCollum:

You had a “Town Hall” meeting deep in the heart of DFL-addled Oakdale yesterday.   MNCD4 Conservative was there to shoot video.

And even there, even you couldn’t dodge talking about the Second Amendment .

Video below the jump, so that the rest of the page can actually load:

(more…)

Obama evades in a way not may people this side of Archie Bunker try to do it:

“Up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time,” he said. “And I have a profound respect for the traditions of hunting that trace back in this country for generations.

“And I think those who dismiss that out of hand make a big mistake”.

Well, isn’t that special.

Although the Second Amendment isn’t about hunting – not at all – I’ll point out that it’s just as illegal to own a skeet-shooting shotgun in Chicago as it is a Glock.

Provided you’re a law-abiding citizen.

The problem is, criminals have “profound respect for the traditions of hunting”.  They just hunt the rest of us.