When it comes to Second Amendment rights groups, I’ve always said “let a thousand flowers bloom”.
You prefer to fight the national fight by proxy? Send your $35 to the NRA. Want to get more into the thick of things nationally? Contribute to the Second Amendment Foundation.
Wanna affect what happens in the Minnesota legislature? Support GOCRA. Wanna affect who gets elected to the Legislature? Support MNGOPAC. Feel like taking it to the streets? The Twin Cities Carry Forum is the place to go.
If you want to donate money to an organization that seems to have little tie to Minnesota, that is closely linked to a network of similar organizations that seem to do more harm than good in the legislature in other states (Iowa, Colorado and Mississippi), which probably means it’s a good thing all that Minnesota fundraising has no visible impact in the Legislature itself?
A bipartisan group of pro-Second-Amendment legislators would like to have a word with you about that:
This bipartisan group of legislators, most of whom have been key leaders in pushing back the Bloomberg-financed gun grab bills, are urging you not to be fooled.
Now, I’ve written a bit about “Minnesota Gun Rights”, as well as “Iowa Gun Owners” and the “National Association of Gun Rights” in the past year and a half. And I get two questions about the subject:
- “Berg, aren’t you connected with GOCRA? Isn’t this just trying to thin out the competition?”: I’m “connected” with just about everyone in the Second Amendment movement. I network like a madman. Hello – I’m a blogger and talk show host; I go where the info is. And no – “competition” is good, where the goal is “who can be the first to drag Governor Flint-Smith kicking and screaming to the table to sign the legislation we want”. As I believe I and the sixteen oversigned legislators have established, MGR isn’t really competing on that front.
- “MGR stands for Constitutional Carry – GOCRA, the NRA and MNGOPAC don’t. If we pass Constitutional Carry, we won’t need any of the other legislation. Why waste time?”: That’s a little like saying I’m swearing off dating until Morena Baccarin returns my calls. I mean, if I get into a position where Morena Baccarin returns my calls, great – but until I do (and I’m not), what then? Saying “We’ll accept nothing but Constitutional Carry, and any lesser legislation merely accedes to government’s power to regulate your God-given right to self-defense”. Which is true – in a philosophical sense. The law is not philosophy. If the Minnesota gun movement had adopted that idea in 1994, we’d still be begging our police chiefs for carry permits, mostly in vain. And the simple fact is, until we get a pro-Second Amendment governor, and legislatures that are not just mostly pro-Second Amendment (as they are today) but very strongly so, we’re not going to get Constitutional Carry. Minnesota is not Arizona or Wyoming or Alaska. By the way, passing Constitutional Carry won’t solve many of the other gun related issues – like reciprocity, the Capitol felony trap, or the right to purchase in non-contiguous states. It just won’t.
- “Isn’t ‘Shall Issue’ just a moneymaker for the carry permit instructors that run GOCRA?”: No more so than fund-raising over a pie-in-the-sky proposal that is years away from passage, assuming everything goes perfectly from an electoral perspective (which Minnesota Gun Rights is doing absolutely nothing to assure).
More later.
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