I’ve been saying it for years.  It hardly bears saying again.

Heather Martens of “ProtectMN” – the gun-grabber group that used to be “Citizens for a Safer Supine Minnesota” – has never, not once, made a true, factual substantial statement about the Second Amendment or guns in America (barring the odd number or bit of trivia). 

Not one.  Ever. 

We’ve been documenting this fact for about a decade now.  The lies come in ones and twos, and sometimes in gale-force flurries.  She lies about criminals and about how criminals operate in the face of determined resistance; she lies about the law-abiding (no, lots, and lots more, sometimes reverting to puerile slander); she lies about her political opponents, and about elections, and, lately, about the results her “group” has on the public discourse.

She’s exploited race, she’s exploited crime victims,

And yet everytime a firearms issue crosses the public threshold – as they have been, this past two DFL-clogged sessions – the media beats a path to her door.  And not just the media that are paid for by the same people that pay Martens’ bills, or the little daisy-chain of lefty alt-media that paint Martens’ toenails when they get the chance.  No, even the mainstream media, the reporters who may or may not know anything about firearms but may try to do a fair job, whose editors want to see two sides to a story and don’t know an anti-gunner in Minnesota other than Martens (or the even less credible Jane Kay or Joan Peterson).

Still, that was then.  This is now. 

So as we head toward another session, I thought I’d reiterate my thesis:

Heather Martens has never
made a single true, substantial factual assertion
on firearms or the Second Amendment

I thought I’d demonstrate that ineluctable fact by taking a stroll through the ProtectMN website, as of today (11/19/14). 

The only real recent output from Martens is her post-election wrapup piece; the title alone, “Gun Sense Takes Big Wins in 2014 Midterm Elections”, is one for the ages. 

Yep, Heather – it was just a spectacular election day for the gun-grabbers:

In Minnesota, gun violence prevention champions Gov. Mark Dayton and Sen. Al Franken won re-election over NRA-endorsed opponents. “This election shows that campaigning on gun violence prevention is good politics in Minnesota,” said Heather Martens, Protect Minnesota’s executive director.

Dayton spoke a lot more about his support for hunting, and about the “two .357 Magnums” he supposedly keeps at home, than about background checks in both of his elections. 

 In Washington State, voters approved a ballot initiative to require background checks for gun sales, despite the NRA’s efforts to defeat it.

Martens is right about this, as far as she goes.  Of course, this issue may well turn out to be in Washington (at least the rural half of the state) what it was in Colorado.  Stay tuned. 

 In other races around the country, gun violence prevention champions won Senate seats in New Hampshire, Maine, Illinois, and Michigan.

In other words, some Democrat Senators held some safe Democrat seats where guns are not an issue. 

 In Pennsylvania, NRA-endorsed Tom Corbett was unseated by gun violence prevention champion Tom Wolf.

True – but guns were not on the top ten list of reasons that office flipped. 

The loss of Sen. Mark Pryor in Arkansas shows that trying to win the friendship of the NRA by voting against sensible gun laws is a bad idea. Pryor voted against the Manchin-Toomey background check amendment. According to Everytown for Gun Safety, the NRA spent $2.9 million this election to defeat him anyway.

So – replacing a Senator that got a C- (earned in part via the vote on the idiotic Manchin-Toomey) with A-rated Tom Cotton was a “victory for ‘Gun Sense'”, then?

Huh.

Rep. Dan Schoen, DFL-St. Paul Park, sailed to victory despite being targeted as “anti-gun” by the Minnesota gun extremist PAC.

News flash:  Democrat wins easy victory in Democrat district. 

Schoen authored legislation in 2014 to get guns away from domestic abuser, a bill that won overwhelming bi-partisan support.

Huh.  And did Heather Martens mention that Schoen’s bill got “overwhelming bi-partisan support” after, and because, he worked with the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance to turn it into a law that would help victims rather than merely punish gun owners without due process? 

No?

In the 8th Congressional district, Rep. Rick Nolan won re-election over Mills Fleet Farm scion Stewart Mills. A major campaign issue was Nolan’s support for background checks on gun sales. “Rep. Nolan proudly supports common-sense gun violence prevention. His opponent represented the interests of the gun industry,” Martens said.

I don’t live in the 8th, but while I did see lots of photos of Nolan posing with shooters, including a few strategically placed “assault rifle” owners, I don’t recall any talk (outside of safe DFL havens) about “background checks”. 

Perhaps this needs to be made more public for 2016? 

“This is in line with the nationwide success gun sense candidates had in this election.”

“Nationwide success” like anti-gun Democrats losing the Senate, falling further behind in the House, watching their leads among minorities whittled away to the lowest level in a decade, falling to under 40% of state legislative chambers, seeing their gains in Colorado erased largely due to Second Amendment issues,   (after a series of humiliating recall losses driven entirely by gun owners), losing the Minnesota House of Representatives, with Second Amendment issues being a significant reason for those losses nationally and in Minnesota, including having some of the more prominent anti-gun DFLers – Shannon Savick, Jay Sieling – erased and humiliated at the polls?

Keep the “big wins” coming, Heather!

Media people, all  you Tom Schecks and Bill Salisburys and Pat Kesslers; when you have a source whose veracity burns you 100% of the time, why do you keep using it?