Lie First, Lie Always: A Tale Of Two Meetings

It was said about “Protect” MN’s former “executive director” (and pretty much sole member) Heather Martens [1] that “she never once made a single subsantial, original, true statement about the Second Amendment, gun facts or gun rights”.

When The Right Reverend Nancy Nord Bence took over at “Protect” MN a few weeks back, we had hope that things might change at Minnesota’s “leading” criminal-safety group [2].

In her press release related to this past Tuesday’s events at the SLOB, we see that hope was misplaced – with hilarious results.

Hi Reinhard,
Good news: The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing was a great success!

And by the standards of”Protect” MN, it probably was.  Their all-out effort turned out about as many people as the Human Rights community’s casual call for supporters with spare time did.  None of their people were ejected from the building for trying to pick a fight with Human Rights supporters.  None of their paid lobbyists appeared in the place of an elected official, to immense ridicule.

By their standards, it was a red-letter day.

But now we get into the out-and-out lying.  Emphasis added:

On Tuesday, April 26, hundreds of Minnesotans who have had ENOUGH gathered at the Senate Office Building in St. Paul for an informational hearing on legislation that will go a long way towards protecting Minnesotans from gun violence: Senator Latz’ universal background check bill (S.F. 2493) and gun violence protective order bill (S.F. 2980).

Let’s go through the lies in order.

“Protect” MN is apparenetly taking counting lessons from the Strib:  there were not “Hundreds of supporters.   As people were let into the hearing, there were roughly 150 all together – about equally divided between criminal-safety advocates and Human Rights supporters.

Just to prove it?  Here are some photos.  Here’s the front half of the line gathered to get into the hearing – which, as you can see, is about 3/4 maroon-clad Human Rights supporters:

Here’s the back half of the line; probably 2/3 Criminal Safety advocates, with their ELCA hairdos and that air of unearned self-righteousness, unblemished by actual knowledge, roiling off them like Axe off of teenage boys:

A count as the doors opened showed roughly 70-80 on each side.  A few more streamed in on both sides – but the chamber, which held 250, was never close to full.

Fact:  “Protect” MN has never turned out “hundreds” of people in a given session, much less at a single event.

Second lie?  It wasn’t an “informational hearing”.  It was a sham; a Potemkin hearing, trying to create the illusion that these two bills aren’t utterly dead issues this session.  It was, in other words, a campaign event, held at taxpayer expense.

Third?   Neither bill will ever save a single life.  Ever!   Universal registration will only burden the law-abiding.  And the “Take Your Soon-To-Be-Estranged Sig-Other’s Guns Without Due Process!” bill is nothing but a make-work program for lawyers.

Scheduled to coincide with the Moms Demand Action lobby day, the room was packed with enthusiastic Moms as well as Protect Minnesota members. The gun lobby was also out in force.

I’m just going to let the word “packed” lie there, like the magnificant rhetorical turd it is.

Although no action will be taken on these bills this session, this informational hearing was important and very successful. It captured the attention of the media, disputed the gun lobby’s false claims, “set the table” for the debate that will ensue in months to come, and fired up the masses of gun safety supporters in attendance.

Fourth lie:  The media coverage was sparse and perfunctory.

Fifth Lie:  “Disputing” doesn’t make anything “false”; you can “dispute” gravity, but if you don’t float away afterward, you’ve falsified nothing.

Sixth Lie:  Masses?  Masses?

We commend Senator Ron Latz for his bold leadership on this issue, and commit the whole resources of Protect Minnesota to assisting in the passage of these bills in 2017.

It may not be a “lie” to say Latz is a “leader” on the issue.  He’s doing what Michael Bloomberg told him to do.

Meet the new “Protect”MN.  Same as the old “Protect”MN.


[1]  Said by me, of course – but known by everyone who actually paid attention to the issue.  At all.  Ever.

[2] In the same sense that Timberwolves fans “hope” that this will be the big year they’ve been waiting for.

Lie First, Lie Always: The MinnPost Makes It Up As They Go Along

A couple of years ago, it almost appeared as if the MinnPost – a creation of Minnesota liberals with deep pockets intended to serve as a DFL PR outlet – might do the unthinkable; engage in some responsible journalism on the issue of the Second Amendment and gun rights.

Oh, make no mistake; they did plenty of dross – the normally excellent Erik Black underwhelmed with some of his work, and let’s not talk about their “public health” angle.  But they also engaged freelance journeyman journalist Mike Cronin, who did some excellent, inquisitive, even-handed work on the subject – so much so that the MinnPost apparently stopped publishing it.

They’re back to classic form, with this bit from Kristoffer Tigue, who apparently hasn’t gotten the memo – which someone needs to pass along to him.  To wit:

Heather Martens has never, not once, said a single, original, substantive, true thing about the Second Amendment or the Gun issue.  

Just to elaborate a little, and yet as much as any journalist should need? If you use Heather Martens as a source, your credibility is shot, as it were, right out of the gate.

Just try to count all the lies, non-sequiturs and piles of complete buncombe that this article slops in front of the public.

A Steaming Pile Of Premise:  It’s hard to know where to start with this bit:

Eighteen-year-old Dae’veon has seen everything from assault rifles to handguns, and it wasn’t hard for him to find them. In fact, he’s owned several handguns, shotguns and even a submachine gun, he said. And all of it he bought without a background check, no questions asked.

Last year, Dae’veon, who agreed to talk if his last name was kept anonymous, was caught with a gun and charged with aggravated robbery.

That’s when he decided he needed to keep his head down, focus on school and try to turn his life around. But he knows if he wanted to, all he’d have to do is make a quick phone call to get another gun, he said. “It’s like going to the store to buy a pop,” he said. “You just call whoever you know that has a gun and tell them what you want to spend.”

So let’s stop and take stock, here; we’re being asked not only to believe that seventeen-year-old Dae’veon owned pistols and “assault rifles” (already illegal for juveniles) and a “submachine gun” (illegal for most everyone for about 80 years, now), but that he bought all of them (illegal for minors)..

…from “dealers” who didn’t give him a background check while carrying out acts that, as we’ve seen above, are state and federal felonies?

Why, perhaps if we passed a background check law, those dealers would have been able to gently chide young Dae’veon to wait until he was older?

Do people actually think young Dae’veon bought his little arsenal from a law-abiding citizen, much less Gander Mountain?

Earlier this month, two DFL lawmakers, Sen. Ron Latz and Rep. Dan Schoen, introduced a bill that would require background checks on all gun sales in the state, a measure supported by a number of advocacy groups and law enforcement associations, who say it could help prevent firearms from reaching the wrong hands — like those with criminal backgrounds or minors like Dae’veon. It too has received pushback from gun-rights groups.

And for good reason.  The bill is complete baked wind.  It asks us to accept two complete balderdash premises:   that criminals will follow laws, and that government will follow the rules.

Our Diligently Law-Abiding Criminal Class:  I’m going to be charitable, and assume the reporter, Mr. Tigue, just doesn’t know the issue all that well, and is reciting what he’s been told by one Bloomberg operative or another.

There are some tells, of course (emphasis added):

And yet, for all the disagreements over whether increased background checks will work, one fact is beyond dispute when it comes to guns in Minnesota. Like it or not, they are remarkably easy to acquire.

Well, no.   They’re mildly annoying to acquire if you’re a law-abiding citizen.  They may or may not be easy if you’re a criminal buying from other criminals.

Which is a distinction the gun grabbers really, really want to keep obscured.

In Minnesota, to legally buy a gun from a store requires that the purchaser be at least 18 and have a permit issued by the applicant’s county sheriff’s office — a process that also subjects the applicant to both a state and federal background check.

But here’s the wrinkle: For those who already have a permit and simply want to sell a gun to someone else, there’s no law requiring a background check.

Therein lies the problem, said Heather Martens, the executive director of Protect Minnesota, a group advocating for tightening gun laws. The lack of regulation around private gun sales makes it too easy for those who shouldn’t own guns to be able to get them, a complication that goes beyond the oft-cited issue of gun show sales.

“If you want to fill the trunk of your car with guns and drive to any street, park there and start selling guns, you can,” Martens said. “There’s no law against that.”

Remember – it’s Heather Martens.  She has never said a single substantial, original, true thing about the gun issue.  And she’s not starting today.

So while there’s no law against loading up a trunk with guns and trying to sell them,  there are laws against selling them to criminals, and minors.   If they sell a gun to someone who goes on to use it in a crime, and it gets traced back them them, there are nasty legal consequences.

You can even do it on line, if you want:

Technology has made things even easier. Many individuals also sell their guns online on websites like Armslist.com, where all people need to do is create a free account to gain access to people selling firearms all around the state.

Right.

Now let’s say you’re one of the people who sold a “submachine gun” (banned by the feds since the thirties) to a young Dae’veon (also a crime); in other words, someone who routinely commits gun-trafficking felonies.   Ron Latz’s background check bill goes into effect.

Are you suddenly going to start running background checks from the back of your car?

If you’re the guy fencing stolen pistols in the men’s room of a bar in Farmington, are you going to step outside and run a NICS check?

If you said “why, sure”, then you might be a Ron Latz voter who thinks Heather Martens makes sense.

Lie First, Lie Always: The Strib Marinades In The Bloomberg Kool-Aid

The Star/Tribune’s editorial board is a group of people, apparently in their sixties and seventies, who seem to spend their days pining away for a time when the media could say anything they want without fear of being caught out in public by people who know better.

DFLMinistryofTruthLARGE

Those days are long gone.  Only the editorial board doesn’t seem to know it, or recognize it, as shown in last week’s editorial calling for, at the least, hearings on a “universal background check” bill.

And like everyone on the institutional left, they participate – with all the grace of a German jazz band – in the left’s only real tactic on the issue of gun control; Lie First, Lie Always.

Why, it’s almost as if Heather Martens, in addition to being a State Representative, is a Strib editor…

Continue reading

Our Illogical Ninny Overlords

Told that the State Capitol Police wanted to hold “active shooter” training for the legislature and its staff, Rep. Kim Norton decided to introduce a bill repealing last year’s law allowing law-abiding carry permittees to have their legally-carried firearms in the Capitol complex.

And the logic was…

…entertaining:

screenshot-www.facebook.com 2015-12-31 15-34-52

 

If law-abiding citizens can’t bring guns to the capitol, criminals won’t shoot anyone.

Just like nobody sells crack, drives over the speed limit or after too much to drink, or robs liquor stores any more; because they are laws against each.

Norton is wrong, by the way; at least 18 states allow law-abiding citizens to carry their legal firearms in the state Capitols in one way or another.

That’s the reason so many Real Americans have such a hard time taking gun-grabbers seriously; they’re not serious.

 

Lie First, Lie Always: It’s Science!

Rep. Kim Norton – the Rochester legislator who will be serving as Michael Bloomberg’s bag-woman in the coming session – has decided to try to put some numbers behind her increasingly strident and faith-based posturing on guns.  She posted these “survey” “results” on her Facebook page.

How did it work?  I did say it was a liberal trying to do numbers, right?

The results, to date-12/22/15, of a survey sent out by my office to 3 precincts in my district:

Three precincts?  A whole three precincts?

Now, a legislative district has dozens of precincts.   I don’t know exactly how many precincts there are in Kim Norton’s HD25B, but there are a total of 56 in the city of Rochester, and Norton has roughly half the city.  Let’s be (what else?) conservative, and say she’s got 24 of ’em.

Her district also includes a grand total of 39,762 people, over 21 square miles.  It’s a cozy district.

So Norton sent out a “survey” to three precincts – maybe 1/8 of her district.  Which three precincts?  What are their demographics?  Do these three precincts represent her district?  More importantly – why does Rep. Norton think these three precincts represent her district?

Anyway.  So Rep. Norton mails out a survey to three selected precincts.  And here’s what she got back:

1. Are you in favor of background checks for gun show sales, private gun sales, and gifts?
Yes (73) 78%
No (21) 22%
Total 94

Forget the actual question for a moment.  There were 94 answers.

Out of nearly 40,000 people in her district, and out of maybe 3-4,000 (I’m estimating) in the three precincts she favored with her survey, she got less than 100 answers.

That’s one quarter of one percent of her district.

And do you suppose those people are a representative sample of the precincts, much less the district?  Or might they – just possibly! – have been an intensely self-selected sample of people who are motivated not only to pay attention to bulk mail from their DFL Representative, but also driven to fill out an utterly symbolic survey about an issue that Rep. Norton is wrapping herself around?

Remember – most people just don’t care that much.  And if most conservatives are at all like me, they don’t open junk mail from legislators, especially legislators they disagree with.

So I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that of the .25 of 1% of Norton’s district that opened the mail, read it, were motivated to complete it and send it back to the Representative’s office, a pretty disproportionate chunk were motivated by supporting Rep. Norton’s agenda.

But I’m no professional…

…well,  no.  Wait. I am.  I design samples for research as part of my job.  So I may be a little harder to BS than the average bear.

(Am I wrong?  Please, Rep. Norton; have your people call my people and set me straight.  You have my number.  Operators are standing by).

Sadly, Kim Norton’s typical supporter may not be so lucky.

2. Do you support requiring gun owners to register their guns with the local government?
Yes(66) 71%
No (27) 29%

Total 93

You know what’d be interesting?  If Rep. Norton had thrown in a question about whether the respondent was a gun owner.

I’m gonna take a flyer, here, and guess the answer would be about 30%.

3. With the goal of reducing suicides and impulse shootings, would you support extending the current seven day waiting period between a gun purchase and receipt of the gun?
Yes (64) 69%
No (29) 31%
Total 93

By law, of course, there is a seven day waiting period.

In practice?  Every store, federally licensed dealer and gun show in the state requires a “Permit to Purchase” issued by the police, or a Carry Permit issued by the state, to sell a handgun or “assault weapon”; they won’t sell without one, waiting period or no.   The very idea of waiting periods is statistically dubious, to the point where even the Ninth Circuit has asked what’s the purpose, especially with someone who already owns firearms.

And the idea that “waiting periods” affect suicides is just a wierd fantasy, of course.  Gun suicides – 2/3 of gun deaths – don’t occur at the end of the waiting period.  They are disproportionally older, usually white males, usually socially isolated, usually depressed – and they’ve owned their guns for decades.

3a. If yes, how many days should the waiting period be?

10 Days (8) 13%
14 Days (18) 28%
28 Days (38) 59%
Total 64

By this point in this exercise, I’m actually wondering why she didn’t put “eleventy-teen years” as an option.

5. Do you support a ban or restriction of sales on:
High Capacity Ammunition Clips of 10 or more bullets? (66) 69%
Exploding Bullets? (68) 72%
Assault rifles or Semi-Automatic guns? (59) 62%
Total 95

Exploding Bullets?

EXPLODING BULLETS?

Y’see, this is why so many Second Amendment activists have such contempt for their opponents’ arguments.

Imagine if you will someone arguing for regulation of healthcare, who proposes banning phrenology clinics, adding standards for blood leeches and healing crystals, and licensing  sexual healing practicioners.  Now, people who actually work in healthcare know that Phrenology was debunked 120 years ago, that leeches and crystals are irrelevant, and Sexual Healing was a Marvin Gaye song – and they get annoyed that someone is not only wasting their time arguing BS, but just a little disgusted that the legislator is finding people incurious enough to get on board to try to logroll the legislation.

10 rounds is not “high capacity”.  “Semi automatic” does not equal “assault” (you awake yet, hunters and skeet shooters?).  “Assault” does not mean “likely to be used in crimes”.

And…exploding bullets.

(Shaking my head, at a loss for civil words, awaiting a line about “guns that go pew pew pew”)

6. Do you believe gun safety and usage training should be required by all gun owners – even those who do not have a hunting license or permit to carry?
Yes (73) 81%
No (17) 19%
Total 90

And even a lot of shooters will aver that that sounds reasonable.

Of course, in Chicago and DC we see the whammy of this approach; in Chicago, you have to take a range test to get a permit – but there are no firing ranges in Chicago.

It’s not a stretch to imagine Minnesota’s government requiring training – and forgetting to issue trainer’s licenses.

7. Given these two values, is it more important to:
control gun ownership?
(49) 56%
protect the right of the people to own guns? (39) 44%
Total 88

FYI – These survey results generally mirror those share by scientific polls done across the country.

I’d be interested in seeing the “scientific polls” Rep. Norton is referring to.  But I am under no illusion she knows anything beyond “tacking ‘scientific’ onto a dubious assertion will gull a few of the gullible”.

She’s wrong, of course.  Not that that matters to her, or to the audience she’s trying to reach.

Lie First, Lie Always: Take Off Your Shoes; You’ll Need ‘Em

I’m not sure why I bother with Heather Martens anymore.  I mean, she was never a worthy opponent – for lil’ ol’ me, much less the Human Rights activists that actually matter – and she has yet, in all her years of plumping for gun control, to utter a single, substantive, original true fact.

And she’s on her way out over at “Protect” Minnesota!

But Heather Martens is a little like Nick Coleman; beating up on her has become so ingrained, it’s hard to know when to stop.

Anyway – this is what’s currently on “Protect” MN’s homepage.  Good luck.

Dear Friend,

Protect Minnesota board president Joan Peterson testified against legalizing silencers in Minnesota in 2015. Men openly carrying guns heckled Protect Minnesota representatives during their testimony. Click here to donate

Lie #1.  No, they didn’t.  Ask the Capitol Police, who constantly commend the state’s Freedom activists’ impeccable behavior.

Fact:  Joan Peterson has a long, grotty history engaging in perfectly civil conversations with perfectly civil freedom advocates – and then turning around and telling people the freedom advocates were abusive or nasty.  There are witnesses.

Now, back to Heather:

The recent gun tragedies underscore how essential it is to work for a future where our kids won’t live in fear of gun violence. In 2015, we made progress toward that future, and with your support, we can build on our momentum in 2016.

Lie #2:  Well, sure – “we” did.  But not “Protect” MN or the “Gun safety movement.  Oh, crime dropped fast, as millions of new firearms entered circulation.  But the gun grabbers lost every legislative battle in Minnesota, even with Michael Bloomberg’s millions lavishly backing them.  And “Protect” Minnesota was so impotent, even the Bloombergs cut them loose, and whomever calls the shots is in the process of cutting Heather loose after years of ineptitude.

Please make a year-end donation today to help us continue our work.

In 2015, we held off efforts to allow people to carry loaded guns in public without first having to get a permit and background check.

Lie #3;  No, they didn’t.  While a “constitutional carry” bill was submitted, “Protect” MN had virtually nothing to do with its death in committee.   The push for it was largely symbolic, since with a DFL governor and Senate it was never going to pass anyway.

We successfully advocated for a state law prohibiting the “straw” purchase of guns, in which a person with a clean record buys a gun for a prohibited person.

Lie #4:  Right.  They did.  With the full cooperation of all the gun rights organizations that matter in this state.  The existing law was inadequate.  And it was the gun rights groups – not the hapless Martens and her impotent organization – that did the heavy lifting.

In 2016, a critical election year, we need your support to get the word out about the extremism of the gun lobby,

Lie #5:  The human rights movement, as shown in recent pollsis the mainstream.  The grabbers are the extreme, supported only by a thin residue of crazies and a bunch of money from “progressives” with deep pockets.

and about the effectiveness of gun safety policies — such as background checks before all gun sales. 

Lie #6:  While “gun safety” policies like putting criminals in jail work wonders, nothing “Protect” MN advocates, least of all “universal background checks”, will.

Next year, we can expect the gun lobby to propose:

1) A Minnesota constitutional amendment to nullify all gun laws by declaring guns, and carrying them everywhere, a “fundamental” right.

Lie #7;  While “Consitutional Carry” is a fine idea, and works wonders in most places it’s been tried (currently five states), not to mention in Minnesota before 1974, it’s not really on the agenda while we have a DFL Senator or Governor.

2) Repealing Minnesota’s background check law,

Lie #8:  Huh?

arming teachers,

Lie #9:  While there’s no rational reason that teachers who are legally entitled to carry firearms shouldn’t be able to in school, nobody can seem to find where “arming teachers” is on anyone’s agenda.

and allowing any permit holder from anywhere to carry a loaded gun in MInnesota.

Not So Much A “Lie” as Really Stupid:  If someone has a permit to carry in another state, why should they not be recognized here?

But with your support, we are here to raise our voices for common sense at the Capitol and beyond.

Lie #10:  Nothing about “Protect” MN is “common sense”.   They’re calling for a return to the policies in effect when crime was double what it is today.

We spread the word about what the gun industry is doing, and how we can stop them. We appear regularly in the Minnesota media to push back against extremists.

Lie #11:  Well, no – “Protect” MN doesn’t appear “regularly”.  They may come out of hiding when they can control the agenda, or when they know a reporter or interviewer is utterly uninformed or just doesn’t care that much.  If they don’t, they – meaning Heather and Joan Peterson, usually – invariably look like idiots.

They don’t appear with media figures who won’t promise to paint Heather’s toenails on the air.

 

Protect Minnesota is the only Minnesota-based non-profit organization dedicated to ending gun violence.

Mostly A Lie #12:  They are, by default – Michael Bloomberg’s “Everytown”, after swallowing up the local chapter of “Moms Want Action”, closed up shop after the last session.  They’ll be back – and they’re the dangerous ones – but they’re saving money during the off-session.

We have been here since 1991 to advocate for better gun policy, organize our communities, and educate the public on gun issues.

Lie #13:  As Heather Martens, again, has never made a single original, substantial, true statement about the issue, it’d be more accurate to say they’ve been here to “miseducate” the public.

We envision a future in which our kids are safe to play and learn in every community.

Lie #14: No, they don’t.  Gun control kills – and is rooted in the sort of racism that the better elements in this country strives to cast off.

We reject the world view promoted by the gun industry that exploits fear to boost profits — no matter what the human cost.

Lie #15:  Heather is putting the cart before the horse.  But to be fair, it’s just a chanting point she’s been given by her superiors.

We don’t have the deep pockets of the gun industry, but we have you.Thank you for all you do,

Lie #16:  They have the deep pockets of some of the biggest “progressive” donors out there; the Joyce Foundation and other liberals with deep pockets.  They fund “Protect” MN to the tune of $300K.   GOCRA, which eats “P”Ms lunch every year, operates on a fraction of that budget, almost every penny of it in nickels and times from real people.

Lie #17:   When she says “We have you”, she may mean it in the singular sense of the term.  “Protect” MN’s membership would fit in a booth at Perkins, if they ever met.

Heather Martens

Executive Director

Not So Much A Lie As Pointless:  She’s kinda a lame duck.

17 lies, and that wasn’t even a very long press release.

Just A Hint

A couple weeks ago, we noted that retiring representative Kim Norton who has pledged to carry a clot of gun-grabbing bills through the legislature this next session, has  asked for “a conversation about guns” on social media.

And then blocked everyone that disagreed with her, instantly and comprehensively (as have with all other Minnesota gun grab activists).

I asked her to appear on the NARN; she begged off, claiming to have not really thought about the issue all that hard (notwithstanding the fact that her proposals in various mainstream and social media have been pretty detailed).

Well, l’ll keep on trying.

But until then, we’ve got a hint as to her sympathies, via Twitter:

screenshot-twitter.com 2015-12-10 21-33-31

Rep. Norton: celebrating passive victimhood for way too long.

I have a hunch she’s going to book a week in Costa Rica during “Minnesota Gun Owners Lobbying Day” (MN-GOLD).

Lie First, Lie Always: Crowd Source Edition

So the next time some anti-gun talking head says “There’ve been 355 mass shootings so far this year”, remember – the figure comes from this site, “Shootingtracker.com“.  It’s a crowd-sourced site that allows pretty much anyone to report a “mass shooting” – defined as any event where three or more people (including the shooter) get shot.

Now, the media presents this as if every incident is a spree killing – someone setting out to kill innocent people at random (Columbine, Red Lake, the DC Navy Yard et al) or as acts of terrorism (San Bernardino, Chattanooga etc).

Of course, it includes many more mundane crimes; thugs shooting into crowded bars, family murder-suicides, and many, many criminal acts gone terribly awry.

And, it seems, one act in 2015 of whose genesis we’re not remotely sure.

Check out #345.  It was the shooting in North Minneapolis on November 23.

Now, you can find Mr. Scarsella’s motives repugnant – I certainly do, if they are as alleged.  And you can note, very correctly, that if Messrs Scarsella, Macey, Gustavsson and Backman wanted to claim self-defense, waiting for the Minneapolis Police to find them was the wrong way to do it.

But they do, in fact, seem to have at least a passing claim at self-defense, not something that can be dismissed out of hand no matter how much one may wish to.

So while it may be legitimate to count it as a “mass shooting” – a mass of three or more people were shot! – lumping it in there with San Bernardino, and the Navy Yard, and Umpqua, with their perps that fully intended to kill innocent people for purposes of either media immortality or political terror, is deeply dishonest – whether on “Shootingtracker.com”‘s part, or on the media’s.

It also introduces the question:  does it include other shootings, where a citizen interrupted a mass shooting with return fire?

I’ll be looking this over in coming days.

Unexpected!

As carry permit applications, pre-purchase background checks, and gun and ammo sales roar to new all-time records, the NRA is being crushed with new and renewing members.

Scarcely a peep in the media (especially about the membership).

But one Democrat politician and “NRA member” “quits” – and the media is lined up out the door.

If I were a betting man (and I’m not), I’d wager good money that:

  1. He was an “NRA member” for the same reason I “joined the teachers union” when I taught a semester at Metro State, and
  2. Come his next campaign, he’s going to have at least one pic in his campaign lit, decked out in hunting camo with a duck gun.

But I won’t blame anyone for not taking any action on that bet.

Lie First, Lie Always: Part III

The world is a constant churn of change; from style and music to mores and standards, nothing stays the same.

With one exception:  Markos “Kos” Moulitsas, ten years after saying “screw ’em” when four US contractors were slaughtered in Fallujah, is still a loathsome, wretched human being.

I’ve heard The Daily Kos called the cesspool of American media.  It’s half right.  The Daily Kos blog is the cesspool.  Markos Moulitsas and his contributors, and most of his readers, are the cess.

Anatomy Of A Chanting Point

Some years ago, an anti-gun group published a “study” showing that the rate of gun deaths was higher in red, square, stereotypically conservative flyover states where guns were plentiful and available to the law-abiding.

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Of course, it’s a misleading point – in keeping with the gun control dictum to “Lie First, Lie Last, Lie Always”.  The vast majority of gun deaths are suicides – and this is especially true in the rural west, as a disproportionate number of people, usually older, male, depressed, often very ill, decide to check out via the most reliable means they have available, their firearms.  It’s tragic; it’s also not the same as murder, robbery, kidnapping, rape, aggravated assault or other violent crimes committed against others.   And it doesn’t take many suicides in a thinly-populated rural western county to send that per capita death rate soaring.

But no mind; fake as it is, this particular narrative made the usual rounds:

  • Through the various far-left blogs that pretty much exist to recite the left’s chanting points
  • To the various gun grabber groups, whose only real source of “information” is the chanting points they’re fed by their superiors in the “progressive” food chain
  • And finally, mainstream “news” organizations.

And so – barely a decade after having been chastened to a fine sheen for using fraudulent sources, CBS News is still in the business of mindlessly parroting fake chanting points.

Lie First, Lie Always: November 25 Edition

There was a shooting at the 4th Precinct demonstrations, late Monday night.  Three men, described by BLM as “white supremacists” – and in retrospect it appears they were, although to be fair some elements in BLM call everyone  a white supremacist – shot five protesters.  Thankfully, none of the injuries are “serious”, although let’s be honest, if I get hit by a bullet, it’s freaking serious.

But it’s the left we’re talking about, here.  It’s a crisis.  Waste not, want not.

How’s That Again?:  The three shooters – apparently identifiable as “White Supremacists” by dint of wearing masks, were being “escorted away from the protest”, according to the media’s accounts, or (according to these two people in, er, masks), “escorted” rather more aggressively:

Anyway, the three men – whose arrest the Strib reports – ran, and then opened fire, hitting five.  It took about 12 hours for the police to catch them.

They were apparently white men, some of whose Facebook pages bespeak some kind of Caucasianist sympathies, we’re told.

More on the accused later.

Until then, let’s talk about what happened during those 12 hours:

Thanks, Betsy!:  Now, if you’re not in the Twin Cities, let’s set the stage for you; Mayors Betsy Hodges of Minneapolis and Chris Coleman of Saint Paul have done everything possible under, and beyond, the law to accomodate Black Lives Matter.  They’ve allowed BLM to repeatedly block freeways and mass transit during rush hour; they not only let BLM block Snelling Avenue for four hours during the State Fair – one of the busiest days of the year – they gave them a full, aggressive escort on their march.  And they’ve tolerated a protest around a police station that has at times blocked access, teetered on the edge of violence, and required drawing police from other parts of the city for nights on end.  Rumor has it the police leave mints on the pillows of Rashad Turner and Nekima Pounds-Levy.

And yet, when the chips were down, Minneapolis NAACP boss Raeisha Williams knew exactly who to blame:

No word if the suspects are sleepers for the MPD.

What?  You Thought There Was Going To Be An Article About Habitual Lying That Didn’t Include Heather Martens?: Heather Martens of “Protect” MN blamed carry permittees for the shooting.

The suspects apparently are not carry permit holders.

I’m not going to quote it. I’m not going to link it.  Heather Martens doesn’t deserve the attention of any sentient being (which may be why the media gives her so much credence).

But if you’re in the media?  Ask yourself why you keep citing this idiot.

Heather Martens: “Lie First. Lie Always”

The good guys have apparently gotten into Heather Martens’ head.

GOCRA and MNGOPAC figured prominently in Martens’ “Give to the Max” day fundraising plea:

By giving today, you make it possible for the voice of reason to be heard at the Capitol despite the intimidation.

Intimidation?

The stories we could tell.

And will, someday.

But let’s move on to the fun part:

We need your support, because this other group says whatever it wants. I quote [from, I believe, a MNGOPAC fundraising email]:

“Let’s remember what Protect Minnesota advocates for: bans on common hunting rifles and shotguns, licensing of gun owners, mandatory inspections by your county sheriff for ‘safe storage,’ court orders to seize your firearms without a hearing, and on and on!”

It seems that Protect Minnesota is scary to those who think assault weapons are “common hunting rifles and shotguns” and will believe whatever accusations this group invents.

Now, let’s recap:  Heather Martens has never, not once in her career, said a single, original, substantive true thing about gun owners, gun crime, or the Second Amendment.

And she doesn’t start with this email.  “Assault Weapons” like the AR15, the Mini-14,  and SKS are exceptionally common hunting weapons.  The de facto licensing and mandatory inspections were parts of the bills that Protect MN supported – indeed, that Martens, a paid lobbyist, read into the record in lieu of Rep. Hausman, in a clubby little violation of House rules. The seizure without hearings was part of the various Domestic Abuse proposals pushed at the state and federal (by Sen. Klobuchar) level, and supported with robotic monotony by Martens and “Protect” MN.

She does swerve toward truth, briefly – but that, inevitably, undercuts her case without her knowing it, bless her simple little heart:

They are a small minority [Which routinely turns out 30 times as much public support as “Protect” MN – Ed] that makes “controversy” to stop any kind of public policy to reduce gun violence — even when the vast majority of Americans support such policies. But something scares me in their email: That they raised $51,000 last year.

Which is, likely, 50 times as much as “Protect” MN raised from the general public last year (they get $300K from the Joyce Foundation and other big institutional donors – read “Liberals with deep pockets”).

The people – real people, Real Minnesotans, Real Americans – support the Second Amendment.

And I’m not sure why that “scares” Heather Martens. It’s the only thing keeping her employed.