SCENE:  Interior shot at local hardware store. Mitch BERG is grabbing a bag of sidewalk salt.  Suddenly, Avery LIBRELLE, holding a bag of various parts, steps around the corner.

LIBRELLE:  Hah, Merg!  Your statistical analysis is shit!

BERG:  Say that again like you’re having a civil conversation in polite company.

LIBRELLE:  Your statistical analysis is bad.

BERG:  That’s a little more like it.  Care to get more specific?

LIBRELLE:  Tuesday on your blog, you said that urban gun violence correlates with Democrat-controlled cities.

BERG:  Yep.  Because when you run through the numbers, both homicide and violent crime rates are statistically much higher in cities controlled by Democrats.

LIBRELLE:  Hah!  Those were crap statistics.

BERG:  They were from the Department of Justice.

LIBRELLE:  Well, look at this!  Stats from the CDC!  And lookie there!  All those red counties with higher gun death rates than all those blue cities!  Hah!  You are an idiot and stupid and your head is full of poop!  Hahahahahaahahahahahaahaha!

BERG:  Yeah, Avery – we’ve dealt with this same exact chart on this blog before.  You don’t see how this is a non-sequitur, don’t you?

LIBRELLE!  It’s science!

BERG:  Yeah – it’s also comparing apples to axles.  My story yesterday covered homicide and violent crime rates.  This chart covers all gun deaths.  You do see the difference, don’t you?

LIBRELLE:  I see that you are a stupid idiot.

BERG:  “All gun deaths” also counts suicides, Avery. Suicides are between 65-70% of the gun deaths in this country. And it’s a form of suicide “preferred” by rural, white men, mostly lonely and socially isolated, very frequently deeply depressed and/or terminally ill. It’s especially prevalent in…the rural west.  And, being prevalent in lots of sparsely populated rural western and southern counties, it means that the gun death rate will look very high – and it comparably will be.  But that’s not the homicide rate.  Which, you will note, is almost nonexistent in most of those rural, western counties with a high “gun death rate”.

Suicide is a tragedy – but no worse than any other form of suicide (the US’s suicide rate is much lower than many countries that control guns strictly).   And it’s morally not the same as murder – which is taking someone else’s life, by definition against their will.  Which was what my story covered.

So, Avery – what does this mean.

LIBRELLE:  It means that you hate women and science and are a racist…

(LIBRELLE, gesturing expansively, knocks an elbow against a shelf.  A gallon can full of paint falls, conking LIBRELLE on the head)

BERG:  (Rushing to LIBRELLE’s assistance)  Are you OK?

LIBRELLE:  (head lolling about in mild delirium) What it really means is that it’s my statistical analysis that is “shit”, and that I should really stop playing at being a “fact checker” until I learn how to do the job, because I make myself look like an ignorant laughingstock.

HARDWARE STORE ATTENDANT:  (Rushing from the counter) Is h…,er sh…is this person OK?

BERG:  Just having a moment of clarity.  It’ll pass.

(And SCENE)

Over on the Facebook, Rep. Kim Norton – about whom we talked the other day – has asked for a “conversation about guns”.

And, per usual DFLer practice in “conversations”, she seems to be deleting every comment that represents the other side of the “conversation”.

I left a comment:

Let’s see how long that lasts.

If you’re a Second Amendment supporter from the Rochester area, by all means, sound off in Rep. Norton’s space (with a polite, well-reasoned argument, natch).  Let us know how long it takes for your comment to get whacked.

UPDATE:  It took ten minutes.  She also banned me from responding to any posts on her Facebook page.

In a different facebook post, Norton says:

They are not from my district, Jared. They have signed on for the purpose of lobbying. I have this sight for informational purposes and to share with my constituents. Please use my legislative email for lobbying or, even better, for suggestions!!

But she’s proposing laws that affect more than just her constituents; she’s put herself in the position of being the state’s lead for gun control efforts in the coming session.

If you live in her district, please sound off.

UPDATE 2:  I’ve invited Rep. Norton on my show:

Rep. Norton,

Mitch Berg here. I’m a host at AM1280 in the Twin Cities; I have a pretty sizeable audience in your district, over the air and via the internet.

I’m on the air every Saturday from 1-3PM – and I’d like to extend an invitation to you to come on my program this coming Saturday to talk about your “gun violence” proposals.

I’m wide open this Saturday; I’ll make 30-60 minutes available to discuss the issue in the sort of depth most media don’t allow.

And if you’re not free this coming Saturday, I’ll extend the offer; ANY Saturday afternoon between 1-3PM, between now and your retirement from the legislature, I will open for you and this conversation, whatever it takes.

I sincerely do look forward to your reply.

Mitch Berg
WWTC-AM
651-xxx-xxxx

PS: I would understand your reticence about coming on a “Conservative” talk show. However, I have a long record of civil, productive interviews with people I disagree with. RT Rybak and Dane Smith are references!

Again, I hope we can talk on the air soon.

UPDATE 3 :  Well, not tomorrow.

Notwithstanding the very specific proposals she laid out in the Rochester paper, she says she’s just researching the issue, and has no specifics in mind, and perhaps we’ll talk when she has a bill written.

The invite will stand until the end of the session.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

In a comment to “A Bad Idea Whose Time Will Never Come,” Troy linked to a State of Minnesota website about job safety.  Their goal is to reduce the number of worker’s comp accidents from 4.3 down to 2.5.

 

Does that mean state government WANTS 2.5 employees injured or killed on the job?  Of course not.  Every injury or death is a tragedy to the people involved.  But in a large and diverse workforce engaged in hazardous duties, some injuries and deaths are inevitable and unavoidable.  The state isn’t attempting to eliminate all injuries and deaths, they’ve set a realistic and obtainable goal to work toward.  2.5 isn’t the optimum level, but it’s an acceptable level.  Having decided that, they can adopt practices to reach that goal.

Gun Control advocates often justify their demands saying “if it saves even one life” but zero deaths is just as much an unrealistic and unobtainable goal as zero worker’s comp injuries.  There are 320,000,000 people in the United States, 2,500,000 of whom die every year.  Every injury or death involving a firearm is a tragedy to the people involved.  But society must set a realistic and obtainable goal to work toward.

How many people should die each year in firearms related incidents – suicide, death by cop, gang warfare, mass shootings?  What’s the “acceptable level?”  Until we decide that, we can’t adopt practices to reach the goal.

Joe Doakes

For purposes of setting actual, workable policy?  Joe is right.

For purposes of shoving chanting points at the ignorant?  Realism is irrelevant.

Like most of the Real Americans that support the Second Amendment, I am agog at the gullibility and willful illiteracy of most American gun control advocates, up to and including many of their leadership.

For years, I’ve thought “this just has to be part of a strategy to rope in the gullible, the badly-informed, the fear-driven, and the intellectual-legends-in-their-own-minds”.

And as with most of my flippant observations about human behavior that start out as sarcastic jokes and almost invariably turn out to be ironclad truths, it turns out I’m exactly,l precisely correct.

The “Violence Policy Center” – a “think tank” supported by liberals with deep pockets, that’s short on the “think” and long on the “in the tank” – did a report on gun control tactics in 1988.   While I was pro-Second-Amendment back then, I didn’t spend a lot of time reading the opposition on the subject.

And if I had, I’d have spent the past 27 years beating on this coming quote like John Bonham playing “Moby Dick”:

“The semi-automatic weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons — anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun — can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.”

In other words, the past three decades of the gun control movement have been predicated on exploiting technical ignorance, fear and gullibility.

It extends to all areas of their agenda, of course – stats, policy, history – but rarely do you find a grabber putting it in as many words.

SCENE:  Mitch BERG is at National Night Out, in Saint Paul, this past Tuesday.   While walking through the crowd at one of the neighborhood block parties, he notices Avery LIBRELLE, wandering from person to person,  accosting them.  BERG listens in. 

LIBRELLE ( reading off a sheet of paper, to a woman pushing a stroller):  Hey, maam!  Do you know what percentage of gun deaths in Minnesota are suicides?

WOMAN PUSHING STROLLER:  Er…(looks uncomfortable – then looks at her phone).  Oops, sorry – I think I have a call…(holds phone to ear) Yes?  Hi!  Oh, really…(makes international “sorry, I’m on the phone” signal to LIBRELLE as she quickly pushes stroller away).

(Undeterred, LIBRELLE walks to another bystander – an African-American man holding a beer and talking with his neighbors)

LIBRELLE:  Heh.  Hey!  (Man turns to LIBRELLE, looking mildly annoyed.  LIBRELLE reads off sheet of paper)  Do you believe that anyone buying a gun should first have to pass a background check to show they are not prohibited by law from owning a gun?

MAN:  Every time I’ve ever bought a gun, I had to take a background check.  It’s the criminals who don’t take the background checks, mis…er…si…er… (MAN stops talking)

LIBRELLE (reading off sheet)  I”m sorry you disagree with three-quarters of gun owners.  Have a good night”.  (LIBRELLE abruptly walks away – then notices BERG).  

LIBRELLE:  Hey, Merg!  I’m out changing hearts and minds about guns!

BERG:  Er, yeah.  Do tell.

LIBRELLE:  I’m reading from the “conversation starters” Heather Martens and “Protect Minnesota” sent to start conversations with the public on National Night Out.

BERG:  And how’s that going?

LIBRELLE:  About as well as my conversations with my family about Obamacare at our Festivus celebrations a couple of years ago.

BERG:  Naturally.

And SCENE.  

Looking at the financial statements from major gun control organizations shows us a couple of things;  Michael Bloomberg owns the industry, and they sure raised a lot of money – some of it from people other than Bloomberg, sort of – after Sandy Hook.

The essential PAGunblog rounds up the usual suspects:

First, let’s look at the Brady Campaign. In 2012, the Brady Campaign made 4.91 million dollars in revenue, which was up from 2.93 million in 2011. We suspect most of that money poured in during the few weeks after Sandy Hook on December 15, 2012. It was the fight into early 2013 where it became apparent that Bloomberg and the White House were running the gun control agenda, and Brady started falling off everyone’s radar. So it is not surprising that in 2013, the Brady Campaign did not raise as much money as it did in 2012, most of which was probably raised in the first several weeks of that year.

For all their decades of blather, Brady is actually relatively moderate.  The “Coalition to Stop Gun Violence” is not…

Coalition to Stop Gun Violence had a similar story to the Bradys. They had raised 333 grand in 2011, and 492 grand in2012. But again, in 2013, they were down to 484 grand. EFSGV, their 501(c)(3) branch, also tracks the Brady Center. In 2011, 460 grand in revenue, then 638 grand in 2012. In 2013, EFSGV raised 950 grand, almost a million dollars. I guess maybe that foaming at the mouth stuff works! They outperformed the Brady Center in terms of revenue growth.

…and it seems a lot of extremist money came out of the woodwork in the fever swamp this last couple of years.

The “Violence Policy Center” – whom I’ve made my personal kick toy in this space for well over a decade now – is perhaps the ultimate gun control group; literally, as well as morally and financially, controlled by liberals with deep pockets:

VPC is largely supported by wealthy foundations, but their revenue was also up in 2013. They managed to boost their public support percentage to 21.50%, which is actually still pretty sad, but better than 2011 when it was 17.28% and2012, when it was 18.17%. I’m sure they are hoping since their public support is heading in the right direction, the IRS will stay off their backs.

That’s so cute – thinking Obama’s IRS is going to go after a gun control group.

And now, the big kahuna – Bloomberg:

It is without doubt Everytown is now king of the gun control movement, with 2103 revenues of 36 million. Their 2012 revenue was 4.86 when they were [Mayors Against Illegal Guns]. I’d note that Everytown spends previous little on fundraising, which means most of that money is likely coming from Bloomberg. We all pretty much knew as much.

If it weren’t for progressive plutocrats with deep pockets and deeper agendas, the gun control movement would have to hold a bake sale to raise money.

The long story short?  Part 1:  Michael Bloomberg has basically purchased the American gun control movement.

Part 2?  One liberal plutocrat can’t fight five million Real Americans (emphasis added by me):

I would not get despondent over their improved fortunes, however. Why?

Because in 2012, NRA’s revenues went from 219MM to 256MM, and in 2013 they went to $348MM. Get that? Between 2011 and 2013, NRA’s revenue increased by 129MM. That’s more than 3x the amount of every other gun control group’s revenue increase from 2011 to 2013 combined. And that’s just NRA proper.

And unlike the alphabet soup of gun-grabber front groups, the NRA is actual grassroots Real Americans.

Take heart.  Conservatism isn’t winning every issue – but the gun issues shows that it can win in today’s America.

As I was digging around through the Campaign Finance Board’s lobbying reports yesterday, I happened upon this little bon mot among “Everytown for ‘Gun Safety'” “Minnesota’s” various disclosures:

Click to see full-size

First – to the surprise of absolutely nobody who hasn’t been marinading their head in “progressive” kool-aid – “Everytown for Gun ‘Safety'” “Minnesota” is (see the upper red rectangle) based in New York City; it is about as Minnesotan as open displays of emotion and capable professional sports (I say this so as not to jinx the Twins with unseemly optimism).

And in the lower rectangle?

They’re gone.  Done.  Hanging up their scolding sticks and sending their monogrammed checkbooks back to New York and jabbering away into the sunset.

This, after outspending the pro-human rights, Real Americans who support our civil liberties by a lopsided margin.

I’m sure they’ll be back for 2016, of course – if not as “Everytown”, as something else; maybe “No More Dead Children Inc” or something equally measured and rational.

But for now?  It’s like the Germans racing back across the Rhine in the summer of 1944.

And that’s a good thing – if you’re on the right side.

Pooing Where They Eat:  The funny part – if you’re a Real Minnesotan – is that when Bloomberg rolled into town with his armored car full of cash, he basically told the local pro-gun-confiscation group, “Protect” MN, and “Moms Want Action”, to sit down and shut up and let the competent folks do the thinking.

And so while in the past election and session Everytown disclosed a metric poop-ton of spending, as we pointed out yesterday, “Protect” MN spent not one dime on lobbying.

Again, have no fear; Bloomie will be back.  So will the blow-dried slickee boys who tried to browbeat the legislators during this past session and election.

Now would be a fine time to join GOCRA and MNGOPAC, by the way.  If you don’t keep Bloomberg and the gun-grabbers at bay, who will?

For well over a decade, “Protect MN” – it’s changed its name several times since it started way back when – has been the dotty, not-too-bright face of the gun control movement in Minnesota.

While the wave of Michael Bloomberg money in 2013 moved the center of gravity over to “Everytown for Gun Safety” and its “local” affiliate, Heather Martens has remained an inescapable farce in Minnesota politics.

Force. I meant force.  Honest.  I’ll catch it in post-production.  Sorry.

But a correspondent who follows these things found this bon mot during some recreational reading of state Campaign Finance Board filings.

(more…)

I’ve had the occasional liberal complain to me that I’m being overly broad when I say that all gun control efforts are rooted in racism.

Why yes, of course, gun control’s history is rooted in the ongoing effort to disarm black slaves, freedmen, and citizens from colonial times through the Jim Crow era.

And yes, modern gun control was launched as a white liberal response to the inner-city riots of 1968.

“But surely things have changed”, they say.

Surely they have not; the secret committee that issues carry permits in Illinois, with no review and no accountability, is denying permits to law-abiding black people at a rate vastly higher than white Illinoisans (Illinosians?  Illlinoids?):

One such example, Michael Thomas was puzzled that as a former Air Force reservist who routinely carried a gun during military service and has never had a run-in with the law, was turned down, even though the law does not afford police the discretion to deny permits to those who meet the prerequisites and who are not legally prohibited. But Thomas is just one of more than 800 people who have been denied licenses by the board. This board meets behind closed doors and keeps its records and reasoning secret. Even when applicants meet all the criteria, the board says they have no obligation to explain themselves… even when it seems clear that the only disqualifying factor is the color of the applicant’s skin.

Thomas wrote to the Illinois State Police, requesting a review of the decision, assuming that it must have been a mistake.

“I have never been arrested or convicted of any offense, either misdemeanor or felony, in the state of Illinois or any other state,” Thomas explained in his letter. “I have no criminal record of any type.”

The state police sent him a letter back, saying that the board’s decisions couldn’t be reviewed. Thomas, they explained would have to petition a court in order to appeal.

Fortunately, guns remain the one area where the the tide of liberty is rising, and all boats are being lifted: 

So that’s what Thomas did. He joined 193 other Illinoisans – many of whom happen to be African Americans – in filing lawsuits against the state police. Interestingly, few Caucasians who applied for the permit in Illinois have found themselves denied, even when their records are a bit more tarnished (though without felonies), than Thomas’s squeaky-clean background.

It’d be unseemly for a Second Amendment supporter to deny a state – even a state as patriarchal and authoritarian as Illinois – its’ Tenth Amendment rights to administer laws reserved to it the way its elected representatives decide.

Unless, of course, the 14th Amendment is being piddled on.

Here’s hoping this case has the same impact as Heller and McDonald.

It gets old, always, always, always repeating “if a conservative said this, the media would collectively crap a cinder block”.

But it’s always true.

But former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg said something that would put him squarely in David Duke territory; emphasis added for the dense and dazed:

“It’s controversial, but first thing is all of your — 95 percent of your murders and murderers, and murder victims fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all of the cops. They are male, minorities, 15 to 25. That’s true in New York, it’s true in virtually every city in America,” Bloomberg is heard saying in the newly released audio.

And his prescription?  Well, it’s meant to sound a little more benevolent than something a Klansman would say, but spiritually it’s the same exact thing:

“That’s where the real crime is,” he added. “You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of the people that are getting killed. First thing you can do to help that group is to keep them alive.”

“Keep them alive” – by disarming the victims.

Forget dog whistles; this piece is full of racist foghorns.

And it puts an exclamation point on the most important premise related to the gun control issue today; it is today, as it was in 1968, and 1866 and 1842, an instrument of keeping ethnic minorities disarmed, helpless and in “their place”.

Rarely as they as obliging as to say it in as many words, as Bloomberg is recorded saying (and the media is doing its best to scrub all mention of the tape’s existence); even Heather Martens is smarter than that (thus far).

Do the world a favor; make sure a black DFL voter hears this.

It’s been a rough year or so for Heather Martens.

It seems like just yesterday that she was not only serving as the chairperson (and almost solitary member) of “ProtectMN”, an astroturf checkbook advocacy antigun group, but de facto Minnesota State Representative for House District 66A, doing both her own job and that of Representative Alice Hausman (notwithstanding being a paid lobbyist, which is supposedly against House rules).  But it was in fact two years ago.

Last year, the worm turned for Heather Martens.  Flush with Michael Bloomberg’s money, the regional anti-gun movement hired a slew of PR professionals to carry the victim-disarmament movement’s legislative water.

And nobody has ever accused Martens of being a PR professional.  Inept? Sure.  Incapable of making a substantial true statement on the gun issue?  Utterly.

And so during the 2014 session, Martens was largely sidelined.

Oh, she still had her ace in the hole; for the past decade and change, no editor anywhere in the Twin Cities media would consider a story about firearms complete without a (false, laughable) quote from Martens.  She was to gun issues what Larry Jacobs is to every other political topic.

But then, a few weeks, back, the unthinkable happened; the Strib published a story on a gun policy issue that passed on quoting Martens.

Does this mean the Twin Cities media has finally realized what every other sentient person in the universe on both sides of the gun issue has known for over a decade – that Heather Martens is to competence and knowledge on Second Amendment issues what Mark Dayton is to hip hop?

Let’s not get carried away, here.

But let nobody think that Ms. Martens is going to fade too gently into obscurity, no matter how objectively richly deserved.  She sent out an email blast to her “supporters” this past week, including a little bird.  Bits of emphasis are scattered throughout by me:

Dear Mr. D’Artagnan,

The gun extremists have pulled out all the stops. They’ve introduced a bill to repeal all permitting and background check requirements to buy and carry firearms. The gun extremists tried to repeal our life-saving Minnesota law before, and we stopped them — but we couldn’t have done it without you.

Can you help us stop this dangerous bill?

Two questions, here:

• What bill are they talking about?
• If, as Martens claims, “we stopped them”, then why do they need everyone’s help to stop it again?

Join us on Monday, Feb. 23 at 10:30 in Saint Paul to stand up for your values — for the right of every child, from every neighborhood, to live free of the fear of gun violence. Click here to RSVP. A program from 11-1 with testimonials and a legislative issue training will be followed by visits to legislators for those who sign up.

If you can’t be there in person, please make a donation today to help cover the costs of the event.

Thank you for all you do,

Heather Martens

I’m tempted to show up.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Star Tribune finally deigns to report that Department of Public Safety altered the Application to Carry a Pistol form, to include more than a dozen illegal questions. Heather Martens is fine with that.
Heather Martens . . . said some of the questions on the form reveal information that may not turn up in a background check. Further, she said, where 80 percent of the state’s gun deaths are by suicide, even the simplest questions may get honest answers. “I could say that some of those questions are very important questions, and there’s no downside to asking them,” she said. “I wish they asked everybody who is buying a gun, ‘Are you planning on killing somebody with this?’ and a certain number of people are going to say yes. That’s just the way it is

First, it’s not 80%, it’s less than 70%. Still tragic, but let’s be honest about the numbers.

Second, the percentage doesn’t matter; the questions weren’t asked on an Application to Commit Suicide. Suicides don’t get permits.
Third, as Rep. Tony Cornish pointed out, the questions are irrelevant because only information law enforcement needs is exactly what turns up in a background check.

Fourth, notice the smooth slide away from the subject at hand – Permit to Carry – over to her pet peeve – Permit to Purchase. Too bad the reporter doesn’t have a clue about gun rights, so she doesn’t notice she’s being lied to by misdirection.

Joe Doakes

Dear reporters here in Minnesota; why do you keep going to Heather Martens for information on firearms issues?

If you had a source in any other area who always give you false information, and always made your reporting wrong, would you keep going back to them?

There really isn’t any excuse for this, anymore.

According to Big Gun Control, the reason that the two policemen in New York City – a city that is historically among the most hostile to the law-abiding gun owner, a place that is doing its passive-aggressive best to scupper the spirit of Heller and McDonald, while more or less living up to their letter, a place that still is mired in the stone-age in terms of the attitudes of the political class toward the law-abiding gun owner…

…is that it’s too easy to get guns in New York.

Since the victims were Asian and Latino, I guess they couldn’t blame race…

To the more deranged parts of the American left, everything is evidence for their narrative.

For example – whether temperatures rise or fall, it’s all evidence of man-made global warming.

And a couple of New York police get killed by an apparently deranged man angered, according to his social media postings, by the Brown and Garner killings?

Why naturally – it’s the guns’ fault.

No, really – there’s a crisis not to be wasted here, for the Left.  To Big Left, this is yet another chance to warm over gun control.

As if more laws would have saved those two cops.

If you’ve been reading this blog’s coverage of Second Amendment issues for any length of time, you’ll note that one of my most air-tight theses is that Minnesota’s gun control movement – not just its leaders, the hapless Heather Martens, the hopeless Joan Peterson and the comical Jane Kay, and its camp followers in the political class like Dakota County attorney Jim Backstrom and Chaska police chief Scott Knight, but the entire movement, from Michael Bloomberg and the Joyce Foundation all the way down – can not seem to make a single substantively true factual statement. 

And the reason for this would seem to be, as a matter of fact,  that they can’t.

Oh, please.  Like I even need to finish the punch line.

But some of you have been under rocks for a while (vide Governor Messinger’s Flint Smith’s Dayton’s re-election).  So for your benefit:

“Their lips are moving, and/or their fingers are typing something”. 

To wit:  Moms Want Action sent out a post-election thank-you to their supporters (and quite a few Real Americans who get their updates as well):

Many thanks to those of you who made hundreds of phone calls in support of Sen Al Franken. His re-election means that both of our US senators are lawmakers who support gun-sense legislation. Gun violence prevention was not a major campaign theme for any federal candidate, [And why do you suppose that is? – Ed.] although a few did mention it. Notably, US. Rep. Betty McCollum’s campaign materials called it out, and state attorney general candidate Andy Dawkins of the Green Party did, too (McCollum won re-election; Dawkins failed to unseat Lori Swanson)

Side note:  Betty McCollum runs in a district that would elect a wheelbarrow full of manure to Congress, if the DFL endorsed it. 

And what Moms Want Action failed to tell you is that while Lori Swanson may be an interventionist, activist who’s continued her predecessor and mentor Mike Hatch’s policies on nattering away at private business, she is one of the better state AGs in the country on gun rights.  So the Moms would be more honest to say that the pro-gun candidate utterly destroyed the only AG candidate who explicitly mentioned support for gun control and the Bloomberg Oompa-Loompas. 

But here’s the big one.  I’m bolding it for emphasis:

All of Everytown’s endorsed candidates in Minnesota won re-election. Yay!

Oh, did they? 

Follow the link to Everytown’s extraordinarily badly-designed site.  Look for “Filter by State”, and select “Minnesota”. 

Scroll down. 

Do you see Will Morgan?   “Moms Want Action”/”Everytown” offered him endorsement; the then-incumbent was arrogant enough to figure he didn’t need the votes of pro-2nd-Amendment Real Americans to win in District 56B. 

And Roz Peterson absolutely brutalized him with an eight point upset win.

So what is it we say, again?

“If a gun-grabber group says it, it’s probably a lie”. 

Pass the word.

There’s an old saying; “success has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan”. 

In the wake of the Democrat party’s nationwide electoral humiliation, the left is looking for things to hang their hopes on. 

It’s human nature; the good guys were doing it two years ago, too.

So here’s what the Democrats are hanging their hats on; in a blue state, a 67 year old governor who gets mistaken for his entrepreneur anscestors, a superannuated standup comic, and a couple of congressmen dragged out of mothballs at the Museum of Pettifogging eked out wins in a state where…they were expected to eke out wins. 

But remember – whatever success there is has a thousand fathers.  Er, parents.  And the local left is stepping all over itself to claim their piece of the success less-failure. 

“In These Times” is the sort of “progressive” publication you can imagine a room full of Grace Kellys producing.  I don’t read it much, because it’s just not a challenge. 

But in their post mortem of the MN elections, they made an interesting and, dare I say, surprising claim.

No, it’s not the callow reference to stereotypes.  That’s no surprise from any “progressive” publication:

Mike McIntee, who lives in Eagan and is executive producer [Hah!  – Ed] of The UpTake, a citizen journalism-driven, online video streaming website, has seen his first-ring suburb change politically. The residents of Eagan’s cul-de-sacs no longer exclusively resemble an episode of The Brady Bunch, but include different ethnicities and low-income housing.

“White People” = “Brady Bunch”. 

Huh. 

Anyway – here’s the interesting part (emphasis added by me):

McIntee also credits the work of Protect Minnesota, which works to end gun violence by turning it into a political issue in urban and suburban areas. Protect Minnesota sent out mailers this election season attacking candidates who opposed gun control. Its gun-safety champions who won on Tuesday include Ron Erhardt, who represents the suburb of Edina. Meanwhile, the National Rifle Association’s influence may be waning in Minnesota. Three rural DFLers who were endorsed by the NRA all lost.

Protect Minnesota?

The gun grabber group led by Heather Martens known mainly for its comic ineptitude, has done more harm than “good” for the gun grabber movement in the past…couple of decades.  They mobilize no significant people (a couple of dozen might turn out for a vital hearing, as opposed to hundreds of Real Americans. 

But what of their claims? 

• McIntee claims “Protect” Minnesota sent out “mailings attacking candidates“:  Now, the Minnesota Human Rights community is pretty good at keeping tabs on what the orcs are doing.  And nobody seems to have seen a “Protect Minnesota” mailer.  None.  Michael Bloomberg and the DFL both hit on guns – but both groups carefully excised the hapless “Protect Minnesota” from their strategy.
• What “Gun Safety Champions?”  Protect MN is a lobbying group, not a PAC.  Did they endorse candidates?  If so ,they broke the law; lobbying groups can’t endorse candidates.
• They’re claiming credit for Ron Erhardt?  If Mike McIntee or Heather Martens wants to make the claim that guns were behind Ron Erhardt’s razor-thin win in Edina, feel perfectly free.  But be ready to be slapped down hard.   It’s an absurd claim. 
• They’re Claiming They Have The Momentum?:  “Three rural DFLers endorsed by the NRA” lost – but then, most rural DFLers lost, whatever their NRA and MNGOPAC endorsement. The election wasn’t about guns! But even so, over 3/4 of MNGOPAC’s endorsed candidates, GOP and DFL, won on election night – and many of the ones that lost in Greater Minnesota lost to other candidates with high GOCRA and MNGOPAC ratings.  Either way, gun owners won.  To claim the Gun Rights movement lost last Tuesday is a Baghdad-Bob-level bit of delusion. 

But delusion is Heather Martens’ stock in trade.  From the “Protect” MN website:

From the “P”M website. Click on the link to actually see it.

Look, “Progressives”; if it makes you sleep easier at night thinking that…:

• Mark Dayton, who has spent the past two cycles trying to defuse Real American opposition by claiming he has a couple of .357 Magnums at home for self-defense, and
• Al Franken, who touches on guns as obliquely as his caucus will allow him to, and
• Rick Nolan, who ran away from the anti-gun movement (ineptly), and
• Colin Peterson, with an NRA “A” rating, along with…
• 11 new Republicans, all of them pro-gun, mostly MNGOPAC endorsed, all of them Second-Amendment-friendly, and
• a solidly pro-Human Rights MN House, with Michael Paymar’s Metrocrat caucus demoted to the cheap seats…

…are a “victory” for “gun safety?”  Go for it!

It’s Heather Martens’ take, and it’s delusional…

…but I repeat myself. 

Note to Mike McIntee and the rest of the “progressive” feed trough; if that’s the best source you can pick, no wonder you guys are getting your asses kicked on Second Amendment issues.

In 2003, and again in 2005, when Minnesota passed its “shall issue” firearm permit law, a slew of businesses “posted” themselves; they put signs on their front doors indicating they didn’t want firearms on their premises.

Two things happened – or, rather, didn’t happen:

1. There were no crimes in public related to legal post-2003-permitted firearm carriers.  None.  Zero. 
2. While few anti-gun-rights people made a point of shopping posted stores, pro-Second-Amendment people made a very serious point of steering clear of posted establishments.  Many of us quietly and politely engaged with owners of posted stores, telling them that while we respected their decisions, our consciences would not allow us to shop at stores that disarmed the law-abiding and thus became victimization zones. 

Most “posted” stores quietly dispensed with their signs in the year or two after the Minnesota Personal Protection Act was re-enacted in 2005.  Things stayed pretty well put, Minnesota-wise – except, of course, the number of law-abiding citizens with carry permits, which was well over 160,000 177,000 the last I checked (far eclipsing pre-2003 legislative research estimates of 50,000-90,000 permittees). 

But the Obama Administration has been eagerly working to roll back gun rights, especially in the past two years.  And with Michael Bloomberg bankrolling his efforts, there is a concerted effort to turn law-abiding gun owners into the New Lepers – to try to re-stigmatize gun owners, the way the media were able to do in the 1960’s and 1970s. 

All are, of course, attacking the problem of violent crime by going after those who dont’, won’t, and never have committed any (and by their existence indeed deter it) – but no matter.  It’s not about crime – if it were, Washington DC and Chicago would be crime-free paradises. 

But if you read this blog, you’re probably smarter than that.

Unfortunately, a lot of uninformed and incurious people vote.  And Michael Bloomberg’s money is aimed largely at them.  And so the re-stigmatization effort is in full swing.  We’ve seen this with a small but vocal number of stores dusting off their posting signs – and, this summer, with the Minnesota State Fair posting its “no guns” signs, very possibly illegally.

It’s time for Real Americans – the ones that believe in all ten Amendments in the Bill of Rights – to come forward again and put their money where their mouths are.  Or perhaps to be more accurate, to not put their money where their mouths aren’t. 

It’s time to stop spending money at places that are posted. 

So take note, local merchants; if you’re posted, I won’t spend a dime at your establishment.  If I see you or your ownership siding with the anti-gunners in the media, I’ll also cut you off, and do my best to keep you cut off until you recognize the civil rights of law-abiding Americans.   

That includes you, Minnesota State Fair.  While I broadcast from the Fair annually, and am happy to do it, I will no longer patronize any vendors at the Fair as long as the Fairgrounds are posted.

As much as it pains me to think of ten days of broadcasting at the Fair without Sausages by Cynthia’s Italian Dog, or a London Broil, or the Swiss Crepe from the Crepe stand, or a beer at O’Gara’s on a hot day, I’m not going to spend another dime at any Fair vendor, until the State Fair tears down the “Only Criminals May Be Armed!” signs. 

Be advised, Twin Cities merchants.  You have your rights to run your business any way you want.  But you’re not going far without customers. 

Can you afford to piss off 120,000 of us?   Especially since we’re the ones that tip, clean up after ourselves, and pass word of mouth along?

UPDATE:  I do need to credit the “No Guns = No Money” Facebook page for the image, and the whole “getting a movement rolling” thing.   Check out the page, and support them and, most importantly, the goal.

When Michael Bloomberg (and all of that money of his) entered the anti-gun market, some of us worried that all of those Jacksons would bring a new air of professionalism to the anti-human-rights movement. 

And in some ways it has.

But in others?

Just saying – this video by “Everytown for Grabbing Guns” pretty much underscores exactly the points we shooters have been making all along:

When seconds count, the police are minutes away. 

If the improbably cute mom had had the means to deal with the inevitably evil ex, the police would just need to clean up the mess.

To: Heather Martens
From: Mitch Berg, Your Longtime Nemesis
Re:  Apology

Ms. Martens,

For most of the past decade and change, I’ve been running down your accuracy, your knowledge of Second Amendment issues, and the extent to which you confused “purchased lobbying power” with “fact”.  Whenever you’ve opened your mouth about anything gun-related, I’ve snickered, comparing  your command of logic and fact with, say, Jessica Simpson or Jeanne Kasem.

But Rolling Stone’s Krystyn Gwynne has certainly qualified for a job on “Protect MN”‘s executive committee. 

That is all.

…if I did have a gun and a carry permit, I’d never carry openly.  Part of it is that is that it’s the sort of thing you want to keep under wraps if you ever need it.

Part of it is that the anti-gun movement has trained the weak-minded to be such incredible ninnies.

And part of it is that it is, to some people, a scary imposition.  And while I disagree with them, there’s no point in picking fights I don’t need to.

Indeed, there is a definite point to meeting people halfway in terms of perceptions.  When the group that eventually became GOCRA got organized almost twenty years ago, one of its ironclad rules was “No Camo”; nobody was to wear camouflage to any of the group’s events.  The point?  Help people see that shooters were like them, not like their stereotypes. 

So while I understand and respect the opinions of many of my open-carry activist friends – “a right un-used is a right easily abridged” – I’ll demur on carrying openly, since while there are as many good reasons to carry openly as there are to wear camouflage, there are exactly the same reasons not to. 

Don’t get me wrong; I disagree with Chipotle’s decision to ask shooters not to bring guns into its stores.  They’ve got a lot of customers to keep happy, and the bobbleheads who decided to use a Chipotle to stage their pro-open-carry protests ruffled some feathers. 

The Denver-based company notes that it has traditionally complied with local laws regarding open and concealed firearms.

But in a statement Monday, the company said that “the display of firearms in our restaurants has now created an environment that is potentially intimidating or uncomfortable for many of our customers.”

 Of course, it’s not really about complaints from real people.  There are professional ninnies involved:

The announcement came after a petition by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, which has called on other companies to ban firearms in their stores as well.

 Of course, there are two dumb calls here; the “protesters” picked a fight they really didn’t need to – and Chipotle caved in to an astroturf group’s toothless yapping. 

That said?  I’m not boycotting Chipotle, for the same reason as David Harsanyi:

As a 2nd Amendment fan, I believe Chipotle is making a mistake. Yet, it isn’t exactly undermining our Constitutional rights by asking consumers to keep their guns out of their businesses. (Please read Charles Cooke’s dismantling of the perpetually confused Sally Kohn’s attempt to conflate two very distinct ideas.) Though Chipotle acted for the wrong reasons, it has every right to create an experience for its consumers that it finds safe and inviting.

Fact is, if the CEO of Qdoba’s was a libertarian plutocrat who supported all my favorite organizations, I’d still choose Chipotle because when it comes to food I owe more to a good product than a philosophically sound owner. Chipotle was founded on an exemplary idea and its execution and consistency have won my business — even when I disagree with its choices.

And here’s the key distinction, with emphasis added:

Now, if this company was forking over millions to some finger-wagging Michael Bloomberg-funded gaggle of authoritarians I’d would probably have to reconsider. But, as far as I know, that’s not the case.

 That’s the line, right there.

I didn’t patronize Minnesota businesses that posted “No Firearms” signs in the wake of the Shall Issue law passing in 2003.  Neither did so many others that the vast majority of those signs have disappeared. 

And I personally didn’t patronize Hewlett-Packard, Pepsi, Pizza Hut, KFC or Taco Bell when they donated big bucks to the Brady Campaign.  Either did hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of others – which is why those donations have evaporated.  Working to show up Moms Want Action’s! message as the vapid lies they are, and destroy their credibility with thinking people?  Goes without saying. 

But asking people to keep their guns out of plain sight in deference to the customers who may be hoplophobic ninnies, but whose money hits Chipotle’s bottom line with the same satisfying “ching” yours does? 

I’m not thrilled, but I get it.

…a “Moms Demand Action” rally…

…with paid, armed security guards.

Because their lives are worth protecting, you know.

Not yours, silly peasant.

For this, Michael Bloomberg paid $50 Million.

A fool and his money…

To be serious for a moment; I suppose a gun that worked like this would solve the whole “failure to extract” and “stovepipe” problem.

OK.  That wasn’t so serious.

Say what you will about Minnesota’s gun-control movement – and I certainly have over the past 12 years on this blog – it’s always been local.  Even “Grass Roots”, even if only in the sense that “there just isn’t that much grass out there”. 

And the movement’s leadership was at least local; while Rep. Heather Martens (DFL, 66A) has never, not once, made a significant factual assertion about the Second Amendment, gun rights or the law-abiding gun owner; Jane Kay is a frothing bigot; Joan Peterson is just insane.  Together, they created a legacy of PR incompetence, in conjunction with a local media which, once bought-off by the Joyce Foundation, spent the better part of a year giving Martens, Kay and Peterson a rhetorical tongue-bath – or just making things up to fit the narrative. 

But it was local.

But now, the local gun control “movement” seems to be entirely run from Michael Bloomberg’s offices.  The face of Minnesota’s anti-civil-rights movement has morphed from the doddering, morally-incontinent visages of Martens, Kay and Peterson to those of a crew of highly-paid lobbyists who’ve never been publicly associated with gun control, but do know how to spend Bloomberg money. 

Which is ironic, since the last has spent the past two years demonizing conservative groups like ALEC for “copying and pasting” bills and being “under the control of lobbyists”. 

Of course, the entire war on ALEC was a case of applied Berg’s Seventh Law; when lefties complain about a conservative behavior, they’re deflecting from the same or worse on their part.  

Minnesota’s anti-civil-rights “movement”, anæmic as it has always been, has evolved from incompetent low-grade astroturf to pure, out-of-state funded carpetbagging colonial status. 

You’ve come a long way, baby.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I previously wrote that the Evil Koch Brothers were not the Number 1 largest political contributor.  Turns out, they’re not even in the top 50.

If anybody is influencing politics and buying elections, it’s not them.

Pikers.

Joe Doakes

And guess who the biggest infusor of cash into US politics is?