Ninny Up!

“Protect Minnesota” is taking it to the streets!

Heather Martens – who, let the record show, has never, not once, said or written a single true, substantive and original thing about guns or gun law – is undertaking one of her last actions as “executive director”

With the Minnesota legislature convening on March 8, now is the time to plug into our plan to stop the gun lobby and build safer communities! Every session, the gun lobby tries to ram through bills like “Shoot First/Stand Your Ground” or carrying pistols without a permit. We’ve been able to stop them year after year — but only because you have shown up.  

She’s making things up again.  Nobody “showed up”.

“Stand Your Ground” passed the legislature with bipartisan support; it was vetoed by Governor Dayton when Alita Messinger yanked his leash.  And that was the only reason Minnesota didn’t join 23 other states that opted to protect the rights of people who resist victimization by criminals and greedy prosecutors.

“Protect” MN’s clubfooted version of activism may have contributed to the good guys almost winning on that issue.

Anyway, they’re going to try to get people to turn up again:

Can you commit to showing up again? [Ha ha ha!  – Ed] You’re invited to a meeting near you next week:
In Mahtomedi – Wednesday, February 24, at 6:30 pm — Click here to RSVP
In Saint Paul – Thursday, February 25, at 6:30 pm – Click here to RSVP
In Duluth – Sunday, February 28,
a faith summit from 1:30-4:30. Click here to RSVP.

Wanna know something funny?  If you try to RSVP, they don’t divulge the locations.  They are apparently worried that Real Americans will infiltrate the meetings and…tell the truth?  I dunno.

And what can the gentle reader expect?

At these meetings, you will:

  • Learn how to pass our background check resolution at your precinct caucus Tuesday, March 1;
  • Sign up for face-to-face meetings with key legislators during the session;
  • Meet our new executive director!

So wait – “Protect MN” is going to pass a “background check resolution”, to become part of a DFL platform that already calls for gun control?

Sounds like a brilliant use of time and effort!

Oh, yeah – as re the last bullet:

That’s right, I’m stepping out of the executive director role to support Protect MN in other capacities. Watch your email for the full announcement. Meanwhile, see you next week!

If you learn the secret handshake, anyway.

As for me?  Heather Martens, I’ll attend your meeting for $1,500.

Thank you for all you do,

Heather Martens

The reader most likely “does” nothing – which likely has more effect on politics in MN than “Protect” MN does.

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.

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.

Heather Martens: “Round Up The Usual Suspects!”

Heather Martens – “Director” and likely sole member of “Protect Minnesota”, and sometimes ad-hoc legislative representative from House District 66A – has sent out a fund-raising email.

Because trying to squat on peoples’ civil rights isn’t cheap, even if you do it badly.

And in this email, Martens – who has never, not once, uttered a single, substantive, original true statement about the Second Amendment, gun owners or guns in her career – gives us a little surprise.

Here’s the fundraising letter:

Dear Friend,
In Colorado on Halloween morning, a woman called 911 when she saw a black man walking down the street. During the six-minute call, the dispatcher lectured the caller on the fact that it is legal in Colorado to be a black man walking in public. Then black man started shooting people. He murdered three people before being killed by police, when they finally arrived on the scene.
Can you support Protect Minnesota on Give to the Max Day, to fight the laws that enable such black people to perpetrate such tragedies?
[Several paragraphs of bla bla bla about PMs purported accomplishments]
Thank you for all you do,

Heather Martens
Executive Director
Protect Minnesota: Working to End Gun Violence

“Wait – did Heather Martens actually send out a letter saying that a woman called in to report a black man walking down the street?”

Of course not.  Even a director at a PC non-profit can’t get away with that – unless they’re talking about Ben Carson or Tim Scott.

No – where you see references to “black man” in the letter above, fill in “a man carrying a gun”.  Here’s the actual fundraising email from Martens.  In the episode Martens writes about, a woman called 911 about someone openly carrying a firearm.  The 911 operator told the woman that it’s legal to open-carry in Colorado…

…and something else.    This story has a twist at the end.

Put a pin in that.  We’ll come back to it.

Then, six minutes into the 911 call about a man carrying a gun, something illegal happened – the man started shooting.  People died.  It was a tragedy.

But here’s the rub; Martens wants the police to respond to someone doing something they have every right to do, in a place they have every right to do it.  And they want them to do it when they know full well that the overwhelming majority of people who open-carry firearms are utterly and completely legal, and will never break a single law.

Martens thinks the police should respond to her fear, her paranoia, and her bigotry about people doing what they do, utterly legally, because of her paranoid assumption that a guy with a gun is a crime waiting to happen – which is not even a little bit different than assuming a black guy is a crime waiting to happen.

And that alone is reason to mock the hapless Martens.

But there’s more.  Heather Martens also lied.

Details, Details:  Buried further down in the fundraising letter, we see this little bon mot; emphasis is added:

:45  Naomi Bettis calls to report that she sees a man on her street carrying a big black rifle and  several cans of gasoline.  Over six minutes of conversation, she relays to the dispatcher the activities and a description of the man, noting that he had gone into another building and then emerged also carrying a handgun. She tells the dispatcher that she is “scared to death.”

So it turns out that Ms. Bettis not only called in to report the legal and overwhelmingly unremarkable fact that the man had a gun, but also the fact that he was carrying gasoline and acting suspiciously.

As, by the way, she should have.

And then the dispatcher responded…:

The dispatcher relates to her “It is an open carry state, so he can have a weapon with him or walking around with it.   But, of course, having those cans of gasoline it does seem pretty suspicious, so we’re going to keep the call going for that.”

So in other words, the police responded to Ms. Bettis’ call, exactly as if they’d have responded to the killer’s legal behavior.  The dispatcher acted correctly, and the police responded to the part of Ms. Bettis’ call that actually addressed something objectively and legally worthy of a response given the facts at the time, exactly as they’d have done if carrying the gun had been the  act they responded to.

Martens lied about the content of the phone call, and about the police response, to give the misleading impression that Colorado’s open carry law led to the deaths of innocent people.

It’s misleading, and it’s cowardly.  It’s a lie.

And yet the news media uses her as a source, without question.

Question For The Media:  It’s not a new one.  It’s the same one I ask every time Martens pulls a stunt like this.

When I was a reporter, we learned that when a source burns you, especially multiple times, you stop using them as a source.  At the very least, you get lots of corroboration.

Heather Martens has burned you.  She’s burned you  so often that the parts of the Minnesota media that care about accuracy and credibility have quietly started downplaying, or burying, her side of the story below that of credible sources like Joe Olson, Andrew Rothman and Bryan Strawser.

But if you’re one of those who still puts Heather’s stuff out there unquestioned, I have to ask you – why?

Ignorance?  Call me.  Email me.  I’ll show you the problem.

Not ignorance?  Then I really wanna talk with you.

The Top Ten Next KARE11 Debate Matchups

In the wake of the “debate” between Heather Martens – liar for hire and leader of a gun grabber “group,” sort of – and…

DFLMinistryofTruthLARGE

Andy Parrish?  The former Michele Bachmann staffer and campaign manager of the abortive Marriage Amendment, who is famous for many things, not including having an extensive portfolio as a Second Amendment activist?

Nothing against Andy, with whom I’m a nodding acquaintance – but why in the name of all that is holy would anyone select him to be the face of Second Amendment Human Rights issues?

My hunch:   because he’s the only Republican that anyone at KARE11 has talked to, lately, and, perhaps, someone at KARE11 figured it’d be a fair fight.  Martens going up against Andrew Rothman or Joe Olson or David Gross of GOCRA, or Bryan Strawser or Rob Doar of MNGOPAC, or even lil’ ol’ me would be a massacre.  A turkey shoot.  Like shooting fish in a barrel on a plate.

Anyway, KARE11,  I’m all about the help.  So I’m here to suggest some equally-appropriate matchups of “expert spokesperson” and issue:

For a Debate On…: “Expert”
10. The nature of Dark Matter Minneapolis mayor Betsy Hodges
9. “Why would God let the Holocaust happen?” Retired Twins announcer John Gordon
8. Is Adrian Peterson past his prime? Dr. Larry Jacobs, U of M Political Science prof and author
7. Were Shakespeare’s works written by people other than he? Jesse Ventura, former Governor and professional wrestler
6. When does human life begin, to a moral certainty? Mark Brown, former bassist for Prince’s “Revolution” band.
5. How do we deflate the entitlement bubble without messing up the part of the economy that’s based on entitlements? Comedian Louie Anderson
4. How do we resolve the crisis with Militant Islam? Diana Pierce, KARE11 anchor.  (Or maybe former anchor.  I haven’t watched local TV news in ten years.  Is Diana Pierce still there?)
3. Resolving our immigration and citizenship dilemmas Heather Martens, director and sole member of “Protect Minnesota”
2. What is the nature of liberty, in the modern world? The Fox Sports North girls
1. Does God exist? Any random person at Happy Hour at the Gopher Bar in Saint Paul.

There you go, KARE. Don’t say I’ve never done anything for you.

UPDATE: Bryan Strawser of MNGOPAC is responding to KARE11:

Letter to KARE-11 TV – October 2015 Gun Control Debate by Bryan Strawser

So, I think, will I. More later.

The Endless Drip, Drip, Drip Of Heather Martens

Just because Michael Bloomberg and all his money have decided to put Heather Martens on the sidelines in Minnesota’s Second Amendment “debate” doesn’t mean that the Twin Cities media isn’t dutifully lining up to give her a smooch on the hindquarters; she had an op-ed in the Strib on Sunday, in reply to an editorial by the Strib’s DJ Tice – one of few voices of relative reason on the Strib’s board.

chanting_points_200px

Before we start, let’s remember the central fact about Heather Martens:

Heather’s Law:  It’s almost up to the level of a Berg’s Law, although Berg’s laws relate to universal behavior; perhaps Martens’ behavior is universal among gun-grabbers. The Berg’s Law committee will consider this during its next meeting.

At any rate; the central thing to remember about Heather Martens is this:


Heather Martens has never, not once, uttered or written a substantial, true, original statement about guns, gun rights, gun owners or gun law.


She may have said some true things about guns – but nothing she thought of herself (things like “8,000 people were killed by firearms” are true, but they’re other peoples’ stats).  She may have some some substantial or true things in her life – but not about guns or gun laws or even “gun safety”.

Her defenders – and there are no doubt a few people among the couple dozen who know she exists who aren’t Human Rights supporters who routinely eat her lunch – may try to dispute this – but I have yet to meet anyone up to the challenge of contesting it with me, least of all Ms. Martens.

But while most journalists would steer forever clear of a “source” that routinely, constantly, forever provides them with false, even risible, information, the Twin Cities media still beats a path to her door – often with comical results.

Lie #1:  Anyway, Martens writes in the Strib:

For two decades, the gun lobby has controlled the national policy of weakening U.S. gun laws. Its solutions haven’t worked. In the U.S., we have 88 gun deaths a day, most of them suicides.

Now, Martens is a perfectly fine human being, but when it comes to Second Amendment policy, she is a vapid trifle – which wouldn’t matter if she ever told the truth, or were even accurate.

But even Martens knows that over the two decades she mentions, gun crime has dropped by half – faster still in places with more “liberal” gun laws.

What makes this troubling is that the Gun Grabber movement seems to have switched to a “Lie About Everything And Hope The Low-Info Voter Buys It” strategy.

Lie #2:  Next, Martens writes:

Guns are poised to surpass car crashes as a cause of death.

Well, no.   They’re not, except if you read the stats in the most ludicrously tortured way possible.

Not Quite A Lie; Just Dumb:  Martens continues:

Yet Tice holds proposed gun violence prevention policies to a ridiculously high standard: Will they stop all gun deaths?

Given that the right to keep and bear arms is on par with freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, security in your home, trial by jury and all the rest, the standard isn’t ridiculously high.

But since Martens wants to romp and play in the world of ethics:

A public-health-based standard asks instead: Does the policy measurably reduce gun death and injury?

Well, now we’re onto something.  Voilá – the policies pushed by gun rights supporters have helped reduce the gun death and injury rate by almost half, and they’re still dropping (outside certain cities paralyzed by pathologies of Democrat party governance).

If Martens is interested in “public health”, that would seem to be important, right?

Lies 3 and 4:  Onward:

Leading public-health expert Daniel Webster of Johns Hopkins University provides careful analysis based on research.

Well, no; as a generation of Second Amendment activists have shown, he crudely hammers public health fact into a form that fits a political agenda.

But let’s focus, here:

In a TEDMED talk, he aptly compares effective gun polices to the public-health-based campaign that dramatically reduced drunken-driving deaths in America without banning cars.

Webster notes three basic principles common to preventing both types of deaths:

1) Limiting access for inappropriate users: Just as a history of drunken driving can keep alcohol abusers off the road, effective gun policies prohibit access to guns by those with a history of violent or reckless behavior. Requiring a background check on every gun purchase stops prohibited buyers at the point of sale. Since the passage of the Brady Background Check law, 2.4 million sales to prohibited buyers have been stopped.

Some prohibited buyers – most notably Adam Lanza – have been stopped.  Many more perfectly legitimate buyers have come up with false positives.  But the beef comes next:

But gun-show loopholes and unregulated Internet sales let too many people legally avoid a background check.

And there are two lies.

First;  go to a gun show.  Try to buy a gun.  You’ll be asked for your carry permit, or (in Minnesota) your “permit to purchase”, or run through the NICS database that Martens mentions approvingly above.  You don’t buy guns at gun shows without a background check anymore without something indicating you’re clean.

Second?  “Internet Sales” – the legal ones – go through a federally licensed firearms dealer.  Where you take – taa daaaaa! – a NICS check!

Lie #5:    She continues:

2) Holding users and sellers accountable: Accountability for drunken drivers and those who sell alcohol to prohibited buyers has been a key to success. Gun dealers, too, should be held accountable for unsafe practices…The gun lobby, for all its disingenuous bluster about “enforcing existing laws,” has induced Congress to protect reckless gun dealers from lawsuits,

Well, no.  Congress has protected legitimate businesses from frivolous lawsuits designed to drive the firearms industry out of business through endless frivolous litigation. And it’s worked.  Much to Heather Martens’ disingenuous chagrin.

Not Technically A Lie – But Just Plain Wrong:  Martens decides to wax technical – or, more likely, copy and paste a Violence Policy Center chanting point:

3) Incorporating new technologies: For cars, it was air bags and seat belts. For guns, it is smart-gun technology (guns that can recognize their authorized user and operate only for them) and microstamping of bullets to identify crime guns.

Tell you what:  I’ll use a “smart gun” when the cops and military use them.

Or to put it in terms Martens might understand?  I’ll use a “smart gun” when she allows her daughter to be operated on using a procedure that is both highly experimental that that absolutely no reputable surgeons support.

Lies #6-9 – And They’re Dumb Ones: Martens turns the corner for what passes for her big finish:

Change is coming. Since Sandy Hook, community support for gun violence prevention has grown exponentially.

No, it hasn’t.

A recent Quinnipiac poll found a 93 percent national support rate for background checks before all gun sales.

It was a vague question that not only ignores the fact that something like 98% of all legal gun sales already have background checks, but counts on the survey-taker not knowing it.

It reminds me of the survey question gun-grabbers used to throw about; “85% of Americans favor gun control”.  But when you got into suggesting specific types of gun control, that “support” fell like a greased brick.  In the early eighties, at the height of the gun control movement.  Like all such questions, when you get into specifics, and start relying on actual information, that “Support” drops fast.

The historically underfunded gun violence prevention movement has attracted millions of dollars in new resources and thousands of newly engaged activists.

The gun control movement has always had liberals with deep pockets – including Michael Bloomberg, who could buy the NRA with pocket change.

What it doesn’t have is small donors.

Per-household gun ownership is declining,

(Blink blink blink)

driving the gun lobby to increasingly extremist positions.

Like, apparently, simultaneously noting the drop in violent crime rates and electing an extreme gun-grabber president who has brought more people into the shooting sports than any previous President has.

We have begun winning at the state level — most recently in Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Washington, New York and Oregon, where background check laws have been strengthened without banning guns.

And crime has done…what?

But Wait:  There has been a disburbance in the force.

Heather Martens not only said something true and factual – but she had a good idea!

Coming at noon today.

Deluded Again: Heather Martens’ Press Release Habit

Since Michael Bloomberg sent her and her rage-addled partner Jane Kay to the bench during the 2014 session, I feel like I’ve neglected one of my key jobs in blogging about Second Amendment human rights in Minnesota.

For those of you new to my blog, and to my coverage of the ongoing battle over that civil right, let me recap:

Heather Martens has never, not once, issued a substantially true original statement.  Ever. 

Not one. 

Her entire body of work – every last word – is demonstrably false.  The reason I say it’s demonstrably false is that I (and many better, smarter writers) have debunked, point by point, assertion by assertion, for well over a decade now, every single substantial thing she’s said.

And since Bloomberg has left town (’til the next session, anyway), she’s back at it.  On Monday she put out a press release regarding the GOP’s push to allow Minnesota National Guardsmen to carry their sidearms while on duty, in case someone tries to shoot up their office.

And the press release is, in its entirety, a stunning display of dozey, fact-averse, intellectually-lazy bilge.  Put more briefly, it’s a “Heather”.

The release is included below the jump – or, since it’s a “Heather”, I guess we should say “…below the trip and fall”.

Continue reading

Shrieking For Relevence

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?
Seriously – nobody actually knows what bill Heather Martens is talking about.  Constitutional Carry – the notion that the law-abiding citizen shouldn’t have to apply or register or pay a fee to exercise their Second-Amendment rights any more than their First or Fourth or Fifth Amendment rights – hasn’t been introduced.  It might be, of course; it’ll get vetoed, but it’ll be good to see what Senators vote against it, for 2016.
But, again, “Protect Minnesota” had nothing to do with stopping a bill that hasn’t been introduced yet.

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.

Media Quiz Time: The Answers!

Last week, David Chanen of the Strib wrote a piece – a decent one, actually – about the straw-purchase flim-flam that put a gun in the hand of Ray Kmetz, the New Hope shooter who was legally barred from owning guns at all.

And the story omitted something that almost no story about guns in the Twin Cities media has, in recent or even distant memory.

There was no obligatory, supercilious, and utterly wrong quote from Heather Martens!

Of course, several commenters, starting with Mr. D, got it within minutes of my posting this morning.  Y’all know me too well.

Still, this is a virtual rupture of the space-time continuum.

What next?  A Strib piece about politics that doesn’t quote Larry Jacobs?

I feel like anything is possible!

Discredited

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.

Lying, Criminal Or Both?

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.

A Good Guy With A Gun

A horrific rampage in Oklahoma, involving a recent convert to Islam beheading one woman and stabbing another, was ended…

by a citizen with a carry permit

More on the show tomorrow, and on SITD on Monday.

UPDATE:  While some media are calling the shooter/hero an “off duty cop” – which implies he was a policeman, with police training, who just happens to also work as a Chief Operating Officer of a food plant, which is enterprising indeed, and maybe even happens in small rural towns in the west – the police report indicates he was in fact a reserve deputy.  Which in most departments means he helps with parades, and doesn’t have permission to carry weapons, or weapons training, any different than a regular citizen.  The Oklahoma County Sheriff’s office may be different – but I’m gonna guess they’re not.

Time will tell.  But experience shows us that time will likely tell us that it was a law-abiding citizen with little special training, but a strong desire to keep himself and his co-workers alive. 

Someone tell Michael Bloomberg.  And Heather Martens.

UPDATE 2:  While the fella was a recent convert to Islam, I’m gonna blame “crazy”, rather than “Moslem”, if that’s OK with y’all.

UPDATE 3:  A check of the Oklahoma County, Oklahoma sheriff’s department website indicates that their reserve deputies do recieve “basic law enforcement training”, without going into detail.  Does this mean they carry firearms, just like regular patrol deputies?  I’ll find out.

Return To Mockery

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Heather Martens.  She got swept away from the spotlight by the wave of Michael Bloomberg money that came into the state this past legislative session, enriched a bunch of lobbyists…

…accomlished bupkes, and swept on, leaving Heather.  Until the next session starts.

I digress.  She was out of the spotlight most of this past session, but during the off-season, she’s still keeping busy.

She sent out this email blast earlier in the week, to try to gin up attendance at a rally yesterday morning:

Dear [redacted],

It’s been a difficult few weeks, watching the events in Ferguson, Missouri. The killing of Michael Brown, the unarmed teenager who was remembered Monday at a funeral service, and the protests that followed, have rightly raised many questions for all of us.

The reality is that the tensions in Ferguson are the same ones that people of color experience daily here in Minnesota. These tensions are symptoms of deep, unresolved issues around race in America. The gun industry and its lobbyists have long exploited America’s issues around race to divide us and block meaningful gun violence prevention.

[Scraaaaaaaaaaatch]

Wait a moment.

Did you catch that?

Chew on that ’til we get to the bottom of the post.

But we can be part of changing that.

Tomorrow (Thursday), a large rally is being planned in Minneapolis,

(A “large rally” may have been “planned”, but it certainly never took place.  The local media used to dutifully troop to Heather Martens rallies with a half a dozen attendees; a search today doesn’t show any coverage of a gun-grabber rally yesterday.  I digress)

…as over a thousand Minnesotans are expected to speak out for Michael Brown and other victims of police violence. Whether you want to rally, register voters, or invite your friends into the gun violence prevention movement, there is something you can do tomorrow to help Minnesota face these serious issues and redouble our efforts to stop gun violence:

1) You can go to the rally Thursday, Aug. 28 at 6 p.m. at the Hennepin County Government Center, 300 S. Sixth Street, Minneapolis.  [But you probably didn’t – Ed.]

2) You can encourage voting bla bla bla.

3) You can invite your friends to be part of a broad-based, inclusive bla bla bla.

Do what makes sense for you – and know that you can be a bla bla bla.

Thank you for all you do,

Heather Martens
Executive Director
Protect Minnesota: Working to End Gun Violence

So let’s go over this one more time:

Gun controllers believe only the cops should have guns.

A cop shoots Michael Ferguson.

Heather Martens lumps this, and other police shootings, in with “gun violence?”

If she isn’t lumping in ISIS and HAMAS casualties by the time the session starts, I’ll be amazed.

My Apologies To Heather Martens

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.

The Puppet Caucus

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.

Our Passive-Aggressive Overlords

I went down to the Capitol last night for a 6PM hearing on SF2639 – Senator Ron Latz’s bill to punish people accused but not convicted of domestic abuse by confiscating their guns and keeping them confiscated, innocence notwithstanding. 

We started out on a high note; Michael Paymar’s attempt to create a felony trap for law-abiding gun owners in Capitol-complex buildings got turned into a fairly innocuous tweak to the existing notification law.  The law, by the way, dates to 1994, and is utterly obsolete, a relic of a time when law enforcement still kept records on paper files.  The notification law is obsolete and needs to be gutted and tossed entirely – but for now, it’s no big deal.

So I showed up at the Capitol.   As usual, I was among plenty of friends:

The nose count, last I checked, was 70-75 civil rights supporters to about a dozen civil rights opponents.

I did a nose-count; Real Americans outnumbered people there for “Protect MN”, as usual, by a lopsided margin.  

So we waited.  

Strategizing got done…:

GOCRA leaders churning on strategy.

…but for the most part, everyone waited.  And waited some more.

There were several updates from security; they were busy with other bills; they were going to get through a few more and then take a half hour break before getting to 2639.

So we waited some more. 

A few cases of water bottles, courtest of GOCRA, made the rounds. It was warm in there.

GOCRA brought water and granola bars, which theypassed out up and down the line (including to the anti-rights people; I had the singular pleasure of giving water and a granola bar to Rep. Martens).

They took the half-hour break – which ran more like an hour.  And then they re-convened – and addressed the Fetal DNA bill.  For an hour.

I had to leave; I was fighting a cold, and had to work this morning.

Latz didn’t bring up his gun-grab bill until nearly 11 – after he’d let Heather Martens and her friends in through the back door, essentially packing the hearing room with his supporters.  Latz has set himself apart, along with Reps. Paymar, Hausman and Martens, as one of the most virulently anti-civil-rights people in the Legislature; he quite clearly passive-aggressively used his power as committee chair to make the hearing as difficult as possible for the unruly peasants who had the affrontery to oppose him. 

Rob Doar, the VP of Government of Affairs for the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance, summed it up about the same way: “Senator Ron Latz is wll established as one of the most anti-rigths legislators in Minnesota.  Under his leladership of the Jundiciary Committee, we’ve come to expect he’ll use every tool at his disposal to make hearings as difficult as possible for anyone who opposes his agenda”. 

At the end of the evening, the bill passed from the Judiciary Committee. 

Which is no surprise; the bill was going to pass Senate Judiciary no matter what; Michael Bloomberg invested a LOT of money in this session, and there needed to be something to keep the metrocrat troops rallied, for all that investment; the Metrocrats control the Judiciary Committee.  When Bloomberg says “speak”, Latz will bark on command. 

Now, reality sets in.  There needs to be a companion bill in the House; the House DFL caucus is panic-stricken about their chances this fall, and getting saddled with one of Latz’s gun-grab bills would be poison for a couple of outstate DFLers that are already fighting for their lives.  And Tom Bakk – who is an Iron-Range union guy who loves his big-game hunting – knows what long memories us civil rights advocates have.    If I had to bet, I’d say this bill dies in committee without getting to the floor, or at the very worst, in conference. 

Which is not another way of saying “relax for the rest of the session”.  There will be more hearings, more amendments, more attempts to weasel legislation through the system.

You need to call your legislators.  Thank the good guys.  Politely urge the ones who are wrong to reconsider.  Urge the fence-sitters to throw a vote for freedom. 

We can win this round.  Indeed, we can humiliate the bad guys, just like last year.

Gun Control In Minnesota: The Next Useless Wave

In 2013, the grassroots of the Minnesota human rights movement – pro-Second-Amendment groups like GOCRA, the Twin Cities Gun Owners and other genuine grass-roots organizations – dealt the gun-grabbers a humiliating defeat.  Even though the anti-rights groups were lavishly funded, were supported by a purchased media narrative, and controlled the entire apparatus of Minnesota government, they were unable to jam down any of their useless legislation.

Zero.

It was an epic victory of an army of Davids over a phalanx of obese, arrogant Goliaths.

But 2014 is a whole new year.

Since the last session, the anti-gun movement has made some roster changes.  In place of last year’s leadership – “Protect” MN’s credibility-free Rep. Heather Martens, Moms Want Action’s shrill, self-caricaturing Jane Kay, and the hysterical, deranged Joan Peterson, a flood of Joyce Foundation and Bloomberg money has enabled the anti-rights movement (in this case, “Mayors Against Illegal Guns”) to hire Richard Carlbom, the architect of the campaign to torpedo the Marriage Amendment, and then to pass Gay Marriage in Minnesota.

And this is going to change the game here in Minnesota.

Unlike the Minnesota gun grab movement’s previous leadership, Carlbom is a smooth, polished PR fixer with great talent at running a nuanced, effective campaign – and he’s already got one improbable win against (at face value) longish odds under his belt.

As a result, this is going to be a different campaign, unlike any that Minnesota’s Second Amendment movement has ever faced.

My hunch?  Carlbom will replace Kay/Martens/Peterson’s club-footed yapping, and Michael Paymar’s wide-front legislative bludgeoning, with a more subtle attack:

  • Emotional cruise missiles replace carpet-bombing:  the anti-rights movement has long bludgeoned their audiences with a ham-fisted appeal to emotion.  To be fair, it’s their only argument; to be honest, they haven’t done it well.  Carlbom won the gay marriage debate in part by personalizing the gay marriage issue – showing that gay couples were Just Like The Rest Of Us.  I think you can expect the emotional assault to be much more focused and personalized than in the past; fewer “schoolrooms full of children”; more “let’s talk with this mom, whose son was…[fill in tragic shooting].  Expect those attacks to be far harder to undercut – Carlbom is less likely to focus on the story of a “child” who turned out to be a gang thug than were the hapless Martens or Kay.
  • The friendly face of “reasonable” authority:  The anti-gun movement lost a lot of credibility points by using as its public face the scolding, unctuous, unfluent Martens, the hectoring and red-faced Kay, and irrational Peterson.  Expect those faces to be replaced by Minnesota’s very definition of “reasonable”; lots of Lutheran ministers (ELCA, natch), with their Saint Olaf-bred diction and their carefully-trimmed beards, and liberal-but-not-too-liberal, Jewish-but-not-too-jewish rabbis, carefully and calmly asking for “common sense” measures to “prevent violence” and “promote safety”, and lots of other carefully-focused terms calibrated not to alarm tens of thousands of phone calls and thousands of protesters.
  • Trying to build the “reasonable” brand:  Expect less (overt) talk about attacking puffy-faced white suburban caricatures, and more about how “gun safety” and “violence prevention” appeals to our better natures; the things that make us human, and Minnesotan.   This campaign has, in fact, already begun, with Strib columns by Lori Sturdevant and Scott Gillespie (see this space tomorrow morning) that stake out this emotional, intellectual space (in a campaign that just can’t be coordinated, and I’m sure is just a fluke that won’t, no, won’t get re-iterated in turn by every other Minnesota mainstream media outlet, nosireebob).

It’ll be a campaign calculated not to alarm, and to appeal on at least a shallow level to the conceit most Minnesotans have that we’re a thoughtful, deliberate people, not given to unseemly rash emotionality and open to “reason”.

Underneath and obscured by it all, of course, will be the facts; that none of the measures they’re proposing will affect actual violence in any way.  Nor are they intended to.

But it’ll be done in a way intended to gently gull the gullible, and lull at least a part of the crowd that rose up to repudiate Representatives Paymar, Hausman and Martens in the last session.

So it’s almost time for a new session – one that may be the most dangerous yet for Minnesota’s Real Americans.

Smoke ’em if you got ’em.

CORRECTION:  This past session was 2013, wasn’t it?

The Many Lies Of “Protect” MN, Part XXV: Prevention!

Heather Martens (DFL 66A), on the line from fantasy-land:  “There is no history of [a citizen with a legally-carried firearm] being a meaningful deterrent or being able to stop an attack”.   (Star-Tribune, November 27, 2012).

Reality:  Man with carry permit thwarts armed robbers who’d pistol-whipped shopkeeper in Northeast Minneapolis:

Inside his neighborhood market, Mohamed S. Ahmed was screaming for help after a pair of armed robbers had left him bleeding.

They’d pistol-whipped him, pointed the gun at his face – and they weren’t done yet:

Outside the northeast Minneapolis store, two men pounded on the window, trying to get back into the University Market after Ahmed managed to lock them out.

“They seemed really agitated, super agitated,” said Matt Dosser, who was walking by about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday. At first, “nothing made sense, then I saw the gun.”

Dosser, who has a permit to carry a gun, reached for his own weapon.

One of the robbers “turned around and looked at me,” Dosser recalled. “He stared at me. I had my weapon up. I didn’t point the gun at the person. I had it at the ready, out of the holster.

The robbers scampered away like the cowardly pieces of demi-human garbage they are.

On Wednesday, police spokesman John Elder called Dosser’s actions “a noble thing. He acted honorably. Did this person possibly save [Ahmed’s] life? Absolutely.”

Why does Representative Heather Martens hate Arab grocery store workers?

UPDATE – And More Reality!:  Shelley Leeson sends another recent episode; an Uptown resident scares off a crowbar-wielding burglar. 

Why does Heather Martens hate construction workers and fathers?

In Memory…

…of Cindy Yuille and Steven Forsythe, who were murdered a year ago at this minute (3:25PM Pacific Time) in the Clackamas Town Center Mall in Portland, Oregon by Jacob Tyler Roberts, an insane, delusional narcissist…

…and the many, perhaps dozens, of people whom Roberts couldn’t murder in the ensuing minutes and hours, because Nick Meli – a citizen with a carry permit and a .40 cal Glock 22 – made Roberts stop short, and then end his shooting spree by killing himself.  (We talked about  it yesterday). 

If you see Representative Heather Martens, Jane Kay, their PR flak Doug Grow, Michael Paymar, Alice Hausman or any of the Twin Cities’ other gun grabbers, please do me a favor and remind them – Nick Meli saved more lives in that moment than they and their groups of smug, sanctimonious, sputtering hamsters ever will.

The Many Lies of “Protect” MN, Part XXIV: “No Precedent!”

I almost missed this one in the scrum of this past few weeks.

A couple of weeks ago, when Representatives Paymar and Martens tried to jam down a ban on law-abiding citizens carrying their legally-permitted firearms in the Capitol complex, the Strib’s Abby Simons wrote the paper’s follow-up piece.

It ended with a quote from Representative Martens; like most of Martens’ statements, it reeks of crap from rhetorical stem to stern.  But I’ll emphasize the part I want to focus on today:

Heather Martens, executive director [Ha ha ha! – Ed.] of Protect Minnesota, an organization geared toward ending gun violence [Ha ha ha! – Ed.] and an advocate for the ban, said the intimidation happens when a loaded firearm is worn openly, as it was earlier this year during a hearing.

There is no history of someone like that being a meaningful deterrent or being able to stop an attack,” she said.

If you read this blog,  you are smarter than that. 

John Lott showed how “someone like that” – multiplied by millions – have deterred hundreds of thousands of crimes in shall-issue states, as compared with discretionary or non-issue states (back when there were more of both). 

As to stopping those attacks?  Well, we’ve been through this before.  Here’s a partial list of attacks stopped by law-abiding, non-police, private citizens with legal firearms:

If Heather Martens – or any of her supporters and employees – are talking, the rule of thumb is “assume they’re lying”.  Because they are.

The Potemkin Law

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

House extended ban on all-plastic guns for another 10 years.  Meaningless gesture.  Nobody gets shot with them, banning them won’t stop people from making them any more than banning cocaine stops people from using it.  Posturing to divert attention from real government failures in every other area.

My grandson has a plastic gun.  He carries it in a holster on his cowboy belt when he rides his hobby horse.  I wonder if Rep. Paymar is intimidated by that, too?

Joe Doakes

Heather Martens will no doubt make them a priority in the next session.

To prevent them from “intimidating” other kids.

You think I’m joking.  But if I’ve learned anything living in a city full of liberals with no fear of being held accountable, today’s sardonic jokes are tomorrow’s laws.

Or yesterday’s laws, in some cases.

From A Planet With Several Moons

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Heather Martins talking.  Lying.  Same thing.

“There is no history of someone like that being a meaningful deterrent or being able to stop an attack,” she said.  Seriously?

Someone should inform Abby Simons, the Star Tribune journalist who wrote the article, of some facts about permitted carry holders stopping crime, just for the variety of citing actual truth for a change.

It strikes me:  Rep. Paymar says the presence of armed citizens in the legislative chamber intimidates legislators.  Pistols carried openly are intimidating. Really?  All of them?  How about when cops testify while in uniform, openly carrying their firearms, is that intimidating?  If so, then you should disarm everybody in the hearing room, which you’re not going to do because there’d be nobody to provide protection.

If openly carried pistols don’t intimidate you on a policeman’s belt, why not?  Cops shoot far more innocent people every year than permitted carry holders.  Why are pistols carried openly on cops’ belts not intimidating?  Because you trust cops implicitly but not citizens?  Why is that . . . and what does it say about your attitude toward the people you’re supposed to be representing?

Joe Doakes

If intellectual honesty and logical consistency were gasoline, Heather Martens couldn’t drive around the inside of a Cheerio.

The Many Lies (And Incoherencies) Of “Protect” MN, Part XXII: And Now They’re Coming For The First Amendment, Too!

If you go to the little email widget that “Protect” Minnesota uses to try to spam legislators, you’ll see this text pre-filled.  I’ll highlight the money quote:

Minnesota is one of only a few states that allows private firearms to be carried at the state Capitol without screening. In addition, committee chairs don’t have the authority to keep people from carrying guns into hearings — no matter how volatile the topic of discussion.

At the Nov. 5 committee meeting, a public safety official described and example of a concealed carry permit holder expressing anti-government sentiment and a plan to bring a gun to the Capitol. Members of the committee who support gun carrying expressed their disapproval of such behavior.
But sitting right in the hearing room was a group aligned with the gun lobby wearing Guy Fawkes masks. Nobody on the committee appeared to realize that Guy Fawkes was known for his attempt to blow up the English Parliament, and a recent movie glorified Fawkes’ effort.

The safety risk of loaded firearms is known – but the use of guns for political intimidation is becoming more brazen every year. This is unacceptable in a democracy. Our public safety officials and legislators should be allowed to know when individuals are coming in with guns and keep guns out of all or part of the Capitol complex.
It would be irresponsible to wait for a tragedy to happen in Minnesota before making our Capitol safer. Please give law enforcement and legislators who run hearings the ability to protect our free speech and our safety at the Capitol.

I have to wonder – has Representative Martens actually been to an “Occupy” rally (back when the were still happening)?  The places were crawling with those creepy masks.

But let’s take Heather Martens at her stated word.  The legislature has to guard against “Anti-Government Sentiment?”

So now Rep. Martens is trying to gut the First Amendment, too!

Here’s the letter I sent back through their little email spam-bot widget:

Representatives,

This, like everything “Protect Minnesota” has ever written or said, is a lie.

Capitol Security staff are pretty clear about it; carry permittees are the most polite, least bothersome groups of protesters that ever show up at the Capitol.

By the way – the “anti-government sentiments” Ms. Martens is referring to was a guy in a Guy Fawkes mask. Ms. Martens is filling in the details about “blowing up the Capitol” – because, as usual, she’s lying.  And, apparently, she’s no more comfortable with the First Amendment than the Second.

Please stop wasting taxpayer time participating in Heather Martens’ Joyce-Foundation-funded charades.

Mitch Berg
Saint Paul

Not sure it’ll get through, but it was fun to write.

The Many Lies Of “Protect” MN, Part XXI: It’s Go Time Again

This email came out from Rep Heather Martens (DFLiar, HD66A) earlier this week:

Dear Friend,

Tomorrow at 10:30 am, the legislature’s committee on Capitol security will decide whether to continue to let people carry loaded guns in the Capitol.

At a meeting earlier this month, it became clear that some concealed carry permit holders have used their loaded guns for political intimidation.

And there’s your lie.

There was no “intimidation”.

Go check for yourself. Call the folks at Capitol Security. They’ll tell you the Second Amendment Rights crowd, guns or no, is the very best-behaved group of protesters that ever comes to the capitol. Friendly, polite to a fault, never even the faintest shred of a problem. Which is an amazing feat with group that always numbers in the hundreds every time they show up.

Not a single problem. Ever.

Martens – as always – is lying.

It’s The Bigotry, Stupid: Martens points out that there’s some fear, classism and bigotry at work here:

A legislator on the committee expressed disapproval of such behavior.

I don’t doubt that “a legislator” might have said something like this. Some DFL Metrocrat no doubt does have an aversion to guns, and people carrying them.

But why do we pay them any more attention than we would a legislator who was afraid of black people?

It’s entirely possible some ninny is afraid of people exercising their law-abiding rights.  People get intimidated by free speech, too.  Do we dignify it with a response?  Or do we call it what it is?

(Fact:  the only “intimidation” carried out by an unelected official during the gun hearings was the loathsome gun-grabber who walked up to the daughter of a GOCRA organizer and told her “you’ll be a better person than your father when you grow up”).

But he then said nothing should be done because nobody has been killed yet at the Capitol.

Nor will they ever be – by a carry permittee, anyway. Statistically, you are at greater danger of being shot by a Democrat legislator than by a legal carry permit holder.

I Gotcher Call To Action Right Here: Martens puts out a call to her anemic, arthritic, utterly white little legion:

Please contact committee members to urge them to take decisive action. They should allow security officials and legislators to limit where guns can be carried at the Capitol.

We can’t wait for something to happen in the Minnesota Capitol building in order to make the Capitol safe. And political intimidation should be unacceptable at our state Capitol.

Once more unto the breach, Real Americans.  It’s time to light up the switchboards.

Which ones?  For some reason, the members of the select committee on Capitol Security aren’t published (or at least five minutes of googling didn’t turn up a list).  Start with the Public Safety Committee.  You know the drill.