Tag Archives: ProtectMN

Not An Animal

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“Protect” Minnesota has a new executive director.

We’ll come back to that.

Modern American “progressivism”, like all its many forebears in the past 200 years, has been all about rallying people against boogeymen. From “monarchists” in the French Revolution, to “Wreckers” in Stalin’s USSR to the Wobbly’s “Bosses”, up through “the patriarchy” and “the man” and “counterrevolutionaries” in Red China and San Francisco in the sixties and seventies, and if you have a hard time distinguishing between ’em, join the club.

Today, the boogeymen…er, boogiepeople on the left are pretty much all the things that people who are included are told to be “anti”. “Anti-Racism” “Anti-Misogyny” (not just sexism, anymore – it’s the more active, more malevolent noun these days), “Anti-Fascism”, “Anti-Transphobia”, and on and on – all of which sounds like good things to be “anti”…

…and, unsurprisingly, when you dig into the “Root Causes” of all those nouns, all things trace back to “Western Civilization” in all its particulars: the Judeo-Christian value on the individual and their worth, value, rights and responsibilities and potential of each and every person, as a person with a mind, a point of view, and at the end of the day an indivisible soul of personal, societal, political, intellectual and metaphysical worth.

Those aspects of humanity are anathema to progressivism in all its flavors. The focus is on the group – the Marxists “classes”, the Nazi’s irreducible focus on race, the modern academic Left’s obsession with a byzantine network of intersectional identity groups. The individual is nothing but a vote (for now), an appetite, a widget to be moved through the production line of life (like Obamacare’s awful caricature of Progressive humanity, “Julia”). Progressivism is “Materialist”. Souls, individual intellects and thoughts and reams, all are ephemeral; humans are widgets that consume and produce, and whose worth and value (to those in power) is expressed via their membership in the collective.

Those widgets have a term. “Bodies”. Not people. Not brains. Not souls.

Bodies.

Anyway – “P”M has a new director. And unlike the dotty, dizzy neverending font of comedy that was Heather Martens, or the serial fabulist The “Reverend” Nancy Nord Bence, the new director presents us with a few surprises.

She’s “a gun owner herself” – which might be seen in several ways. Is “P”M moderating? Are they realizing that the culture war has slipped far enough away from them, especially over this past year, that they have to start speaking to people who need to be convinced?

And she’s apparently incredibly famous, since she apparently just goes by “Rashmi”. I’ve turned “Protect” Minnesota’s website, Facebook feed and other social media upside down, and not been able to find any reference to a last name, which is Seneviratne, by the way.

But even during the reign of the serial fabulist the Reverend Nord Bence, “Protect” MN wasn’t nearly extreme enough in its hatred of guns and (law-abiding) gun owners, enough for some people.

“P”M spawned a breakway group, “Survivors Lead” – basically a woman, Rachel Joseph, with a long history of progressive activism and a story; an aunt who was murdered, according to Ms. Joseph’s story, by a gun.

Quick aside: I don’t minimize anyone’s trauma over having a loved one murdered. But in the many times I’ve heard Ms. Joseph’s story, she’s never once mentioned a perpetrator, someone actually holding and using the gun that killed her aunt; that persons evil motivation, the legal fallout from the murder, whether that person was sentenced or not. It’d be wrong to crack wise – “what, did the gun animate itself?” – but omitting a perpetrator, his/her motives and the like from the conversation is incredibly intellectually dishonest.

Anyway – “Rashmi” and her apparent moderation are not going over well with “Survivors Lead”:

The extreme heckling the not-as-extreme about getting less extreme. That qualifies as “dog bites man”, at the very most.

Rather less so? There followed some more, er, ethnically pointed traffic on one social media feed (from which I’ve long been blocked) or another.

After which “P”M – operating through its usual social media persona, the omniscient third person that used to be Martens and Nord Bence – responded:

On the one hand, watching the agents of Big Left eating each other is one of my favorite spectator sports.

And if the biggest semi-organic anti-gun group in MInnesota (shaddap about Moms Want Action already) is pivoting from pushing Linda Slocum’s gun grab bill to highlighting the inequity of gun control (“Race, class and geography all play into who gets to have a gun and who doesn’t” – which is something every Second Amendment activist has known for 50 years) and speaking in the first “person” to the prudence of victims of violence to arm up, then in culture war terms that’s the sound of the first tank crossing the pontoon bridge at Remagen.

But…”white bodied privilege?”

What the flaming hootie hoo?

I thought for a moment – is this a shot back at the Rachel Dolezals and Elizabeth Warrens of the world, with their flip-flopping identities, by “actual” “people of color”, reinforcing the idea that while you might “identify” with one degree melanin or another, your apparent appearance still wins out in the great privilege lottery (which will, I suspect, get pilloried hard by the Trans crowd, for whom perceived identity is everything? I’ll let the fight that one out).

But no. It’s much less hilarious than that.

It’s “inclusion language” – slang or argot that one class of people use to track who is in, and who is “out” – to be sure. That’s part of it, and people are noticing:

Referring to people as bodies is a reminder, writer Elizabeth Barnes says in an interview, that “racism isn’t just about the ideas that you have in your head.” Barnes is the author of “The Minority Body: A Theory of Disability, The Girl Behind the Wall.” In intellectual discussions, theories about social oppression sound almost disembodied; “we talk about prejudice,” Barnes says, “like it’s just a matter of ideas.” The point is to emphasize the physical violence done to black people through slavery, lynching, and police brutality. In the case of women, the term “bodies” highlights “what happens to women’s bodies in health care contexts, in sexual contexts, in reproductive contexts.”

But behond that?

It’s a nod to the materialism of the left – that the mind, the thoughts, the indivisible soul of the indivisual human being is not merely irrelevant, but inconvenient to the obsession with identity.

Your melanin defines you.

In some ways its a cheap ad hominem – “of course you’d think that, you are (add a reference to your target’s melanin, or lack thereof)”. But pointing logical fallacies out to the foot soldiers of Big Left is a little like arguing salinity with sharks; it’s just part of the water they swim in.

So – gun groups eating each other? Good.

The debate contributing to the ongoing hijacking of the language? Bad.

The whole thing participating, in its own little way, in the further erosion of one of the ideals that’s made Western Civilization the most successful, and humane , civilization in human history?

Worse.

New, Miserable Regime

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The Reverend Nancy Nord Bence led “Protect” MN for four gloriously inept years.

In those years, she never – not once – made a statement about guns, gun owners, gun crime, self-defense, gun hardware, gun laws, the Second Amendment, its history, its jurisprudence or its application that was simultaneously substantial, original and true.

This blog spent four years calling our her constant prevarication and fabulism. The content never ended…

…well, until she “left” PM last month.

And now, we’re moving on. At least for a while. “Protect” MN has an “interim” director:

Lest anyone was in doubt about “P”M’s place in the Minnesota Non-Profit/Industrial Complex, Mueller was an executive at “Planned Parenthood” for ten years. She’s got a background in “Public Health”, although apparently not the kind of pubic health that’s of any use during epidemics.

Welcome, Ms. Mueller. When you start lying, we’ll be right here waiting for you.

By the way – about that “if you’re in a home with guns and feel unsafe, reach out…” bit?

What if you’re in a home without ’em and feel unsafe? Or feel safe because you have ’em? Can I call?

I’ll try to invite her on the NARN.

Lie First, Lie Always: Lie, Finally

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Has it only been four years that the “Reverend” Nancy Nord Bence took over as the ‘Executive Director” and one of about five actual “members” of “Protect” Minnesota?

Sometimes it seems like so much longer.

Even by Twin Cities “progressive” standards, the “Reverend” Nord Bence blazed a trail of intellectual and moral depravity in which she stood nearly alone.

Am I being hyperbolic?

Oh heavens no:

  • She accused the MN Gun Owners Caucus of inviting “White Supremacists” to speak at their annual rally (and this was before Big Left accused everyone of “white supremacy”)
  • She accused the Caucus of involvement in the firebombing of the Dar Al Farouk mosque.
  • Showed herself to be a casual racist
  • They slandered Caucus political director Rob Doar
  • LIed about the goings-on at the Senate hearings in HIbbing a few weeks ago

…and was basically such a font of fodder that not only did I give her her own permanent tag, but she was granted a nearly-personal category on this blog.

From that first day to today, the “Reverend” Nord Bence has never – not once – made a statement about guns, gun laws, gun owners, gun crime, or anything about the Second Amendment that is simultaneously substantial, original and true. Her constant “false witness” about her law-abiding fellow citizens should be regarded as an abomination by her erstwhile denomination, the ELCA.

I said “should”.

But all good, loathsome-yet-risible things must come to an end. The “Reverend” is picking up and moving along:

Now, if it’s like most posts on the “Protect” MN facebook page, there’d be a better than even chance the post would be wrong, and quickly retracted, even if it weren’t a lie.

But it’s apparently as legit as anything “Protect” MN ever actually writes. The “Reverend” is going to lend her, um, “talents” to getting Democrats elected.

There are only two things we can be sure of:

  • Any campaign she’s involved in, outside safe urban areas (and by “safe”, I mean both for the DFL and for matronly unarmed white women to walk around in), is doomed.
  • “Protect” MN will hire someone even more radical to replace Nord Bence.

Adios, Nancy. You are a liar, and you never packed the gear to stand up to a rational debate, but…

…well, that pretty much covers it. Swirl away down the soilpipe of history, you sad lying hag.

Full Gaslight

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On Facebook the other day, The “Reverend” Nancy Nord Bence went full-on gaslight:

https://www.facebook.com/PMActionFund/posts/973936109650049?__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARBDE-9oDvOpvjRJTFtSabaw2kTwJGjH75qm8SHpQ7yt9Fd6j_ypHX8eF44ROq5g-Y6vDXYqSsyD1BEQAqF0QDou6-tMhb5pTw7lVJKnnjv6dq5rMQCAI-IXCPd2hlVtSW-CfjErrU5-zvM-6oPCWPHXD3m5V1jgNM5Lde1Goif9mzqeWsm_Sb4vdD5NiVXPnLGE6q26KbN50HQ3FByD1iJ7F9hmX3h2bwnpL7nfTfPq3FrUQAO94_IJJgMEiptBtYvq6WjRmn9BEiR0Oq5zPy_WmrlyJfNrNSnyrpB8e3W717VxWP3dKlyYegexAQ2-9pe3lkG1R3QCdd_GqbrevIITNSGesHChWqYFHugirhSeGNwwERAFORA&__tn__=-R
Thumbnail included in case they scrub the Facebook post in embarassment. Which happens. A lot.

“To face the reality of our gun problem, you’ll have to admit that you are the problem too. You’ll be forced to connect the dots between guns and your white theology, guns and your nationalism, guns and your Islamophobia, guns and your white supremacy, guns and your resentment of foreigners, guns and the people who so often shoot strangers in shopping malls and schools and churches and concerts—guns and you.”

That’s not “facing the reality of the ‘gun problem'”. That’s exposing the reality of American Tribalism, delivered with a nasal, smug upper-middle-class white ninny accent.

It’s a real-life example of what Dennis Prager says: “Conservatives think progressives are wrong; progressives think conservatives are *evil*. And you don’t bother talking, debating or reasoning with evil”.

Pass this around. People need to know the other side’s motivations.

This isn’t some crackpot. This is the moral and intellectual leader of the “gun safety” movement in Minnesota.

She’s one sick, twisted little person.

Up From Zero

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As I’ve pointed out in the past, “Protect” Minnesota and their director, the “Reverend” Nancy Nord Bence, have never made an assertion about guns, gun owners, gun laws, gun crime, gun statistics, the Second Amendment or its history that is simultaneously:

  • Original
  • Substantial, and
  • True.

You might get two out of three, sometimes.

This next howler?:

The “Reverend” makes three assertions. In reverse order:

Banks stopped using armed guards because they were being targeted: The “Reverend”, or someone she read, apparently thinks people rob banks for the same reason they climb mountains or skydive – to surmount a challenge, to defeat an obstacle.

It’s baked monkey doodle, of course. Banks found that it was cheaper to give bank robbers “bait” money than to resist them, in terms of civil liability.

School shooters, being “suicidal” and wanting to go out in a blaze of glory, would jump at the chance to attack a harder target: Which explains how many mass shooters go straight for the nearby cops when they launch their attacks.

Wait, what? That never happens?

The “Reverend” is making things up again.

While death is part of some spree killers’ fantasy narrative, it only comes after killing as many people as they can first.

If the “Reverend” can show us a single example of a spree killer specifically picking out an armed target, I’m all ears. I’ll wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Allowing teachers and staff to carry firearms would increase the number of shootings, thefts and accidental discharges: Here, the “Reverend” actually comes close to making a point. It’s possible that this could increase the number and rate of incidents.

Because when you’re at “Zero”, anything is an increase. And out of the thousand school districts that allow staff to exercise their Second Amendment rights to defend themselves and their charges, that’s how many incidents there have been in the past twenty years:

After the Columbine school shooting 20 years ago, one of the more significant changes in how we protect students has been the advance of legislation that allows teachers to carry guns at schools. There are two obvious questions: Does letting teachers carry create dangers? Might they deter attackers? Twenty states currently allow teachers and staff to carry guns to varying degrees on school property, so we don’t need to guess how the policy would work. There has yet to be a single case of someone being wounded or killed from a shooting, let alone a mass public shooting, between 6 AM and midnight at a school that lets teachers carry guns.

And how about accidents, or boistrous or larcenous students stealing teachers’ guns?

Again:

Fears of teachers carrying guns in terms of such problems as students obtaining teachers guns have not occurred at all, and there was only one accidental discharge outside of school hours with no one was really harmed. While there have not been any problems at schools with armed teachers, the number of people killed at other schools has increased significantly – doubling between 2001 and 2008 versus 2009 and 2018.

So, technically, the “Reverend” had a point, here – since in 20 years in 20 states there have been no incidents – none, zero, nada, nichevo – then the first incident would, literally, be an increase. And in a nation of millions, bad things happen. They’re inevitable.

But with a very significant sample, over a significant time span, we’re still waiting. Knock wood.

So The Final Score…: But we don’t give points for techical correctness, since it was in the furtherance of a lie.

So out of a potential three points for her statement being original, substantial and true, the “Reverend” rates…:

Many Good Guys With Guns

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A good guy with a gun is involved in ending one out of twelve mass shootings in recent years, according to Ted Nugent.

Just kidding. It’s according to the FBI.

And they may be under-reporting even that figure:

The FBI’s two latest reports state that there were 40 active shooter cases from 2014-15 and 50 cases from 2016-17.  During these two periods, the FBI reports that two and five shootings, respectively, were stopped by individuals with concealed handgun permits.  The two reports each describe an additional case where a permit holder was involved but wounded or killed by the attacker.
For four years, the CPRC has been collecting cases of concealed handgun permit holders stopping mass public shootings. As we will show below, permit holders saved lives in between 13 and 16 cases from 2014-17.  This includes the seven cases that the FBI lists, seven cases that should have been included (one of the seven is debatable), and two cases that the FBI had on its list but doesn’t include as instances of permit holders saving lives.  Thus, concealed handgun permit holders saved lives in 13.5% to 16.5% of 97 cases. We only started collecting these cases were permit holders stopped attacks in 2014, so a comparison is limited to the last two active shooting reports put out by the FBI.
It is entirely possible that in the two cases where a permit holder was wounded or killed by the attacker that the permit holder’s actions allowed others to escape the scene. But even assuming that was not the case, permit holders were successful between 87% and 89% of the time that they intervened.

But let’s take the FBI’s 8% figure at face value. 8% of the American people do not carry firearms. Likely no more than a fraction of that, even in gun-friendly states.

And almost all spree killings happen in gun-free zones, where nobody is supported to be carrying.

So – as the DFL tries to jam down the gun control agenda Michael Bloomberg paid them to work for here in Minnesota – where, one wonderss, on earth does “Protect” Minnesota get the idea that attazcking a spree killer, unarmed, is 20 times as effective as using a firearm?

According to a 2013 FBI study of 160 active shootings between 2000 and 2013, in only one incident was an armed civilian
able to stop the attack–and that was a US Marine– but 21 of those shootings (13%) were interrupted by unarmed civilians.
Thus, unarmed civilians are 20 times more likely to stop a rampage shooting than armed civilians.

Source: The Latest Research on Rampage Shootings Show that Gunmen Rarely Target Gun-Free Zones. Jennifer Mascia The Trace. November 30, 2016. Yes, they actually believe this crap.

Unmentioned – the ratio of successful attempts vs. fatalities for armed vs. unarmed people.

Because one might think that if attacking spree killers without weapons were a viable tactic, SWAT teams would be using it today.

Lie First, Lie Always: Nancy Nord Bence’s Unbroken Streak!

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It’s not quite a “Berg’s Law”, since it only pertains to a few groups, most particularly “Protect” Minnesota – the voice of the gun control movement in Minnesota – but it’s getting close.

Let be say this as clearly and unequivocally as I can:

“Protect” Minnesota has never made a single statement about guns, gun violence, gun laws, the 2nd Amendment, or law-abiding gun owners that is simultaneously substantial, original and true [1].  

Not one. 

Doesn’t matter if it was Heather Martens, or Nancy Nord Bence, or any of their constantly-rotating stream of lobbyists, lieutenants and creepy hangers-on; it’s still true.

Not one single statement that is simultaneously substantial, original and true. 

Case in point:  their “coverage” of the episode a few weeks ago where a (WHITE!  MIDDLE AGED!) Eden Prairie man got into a scuffle with a bunch of reportedly Somali teens at a gas station.

This was their first response to the story, going back a bit.

Now, I’ve been watching the story as well.  We don’t know much about the story, but we know a few things:

First – the man had no Minnesota carry permit.   Thank goodness.

Second – while the laws about displaying and threatening the use of lethal force are even more vague in Minnesota than the ones about the use of lethal force, it is under some circumstances legal to “brandish” a firearm to make a potential threat go away.    The law – a mixture of vague statute and very specific case law – is muddled and specific; while the juridprudence on the subject might not be designed to be a transfer of wealth from taxpayers to prosecutors, and from people to defense attorneys – but if they had set out to design such a system, it wouldn’t look a lot different.

Third – for purposes of my point, the actual behavior of the “Somali teens” doesn’t matter; they may have been utterly blameless (although groups of teenagers, especially with adolescent boys showing out for the girls, are pretty much always small, demented mobs no matter their ethnicity; given that the news reports mention nothing about their behavior, I’m doing to assume there’s something to hide).  So with that said – the video from Channel 4 seems to show that the man tried to retreat as the group of “teenagers” harried him.

Which means it’s not a “Stand Your Ground” case.

The guy may or may not have reasonably feared for his life and safety, thus possibly justifying brandishing a firearm – that, it seems, will be decided at trial.

Someone needs to tell the howler monkey – likely the gaffe-prone, not-especially-fact-obsessed Nord Bence:

As usual when “P” M makes a statement?   No.  This case wouldn’t be any different at all.

Why?

As we’ve pointed out countless times on this blog, there are four criteria you need to meet under current Minnesota law to use lethal force in self-defense; you have to reasonably  fear immediate death or great bodily harm, you can’t be the aggressor, you can only use the force needed to end the threat, and you have a duty to make a reasonable effort to retreat.

“Stand your ground” merely removes that last clause when you are anyplace you have a legal right to be.  Including McDonalds.

It doesn’t remove the other three criteria!

Was he in immediate life-threatening danger?    Was he the aggressor?  That’ll be decided at trial.

But – let me find the “Bold” button for emphasis:

He retreated!     He backed away from the “teens”!   Was it a “reasonable” effort to do so?  We’ll see what the jury decides.

But “Stand Your Ground” was not, and would never be, an issue in this case.

And if you get your information from “Protect” Minnesota, about this or any other case, you are not only less informed, but you’re participating in making our society dumber on this issue.

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I’m Not Saying…

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…that gun control activists are stupid.

I am saying they sure hope you’re stupid, and are trying to make you more so

“Protect” MN posted this:

Now, I get that you can’t judge a book by its cover…

…but do you see this guy standing m line at Cabelas filling out his paperwork while waiting for his NICS to come back?

While I strive to remain civil, I’m at a loss to remember a less…cognitively adept public figure than Nancy Nord Bence.

The Juggernaut Strikes

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It’s convention time.

Time for groups trying to influence the political process to wield the power of their numbers, finances and organizing skill to benefit the candidate they choose.

For a group with serious power – human, financial or moral – it’s time to apply that power to the endorsement of candidates for key state offices. And the big office at play in this weekend’s state conventions will be Governor.

Pressure groups, grassroots organizers, PACs and lobbies will be judiciously applying their clout to the candidates that seem most closely to track their interests and goals, with the skill and restraint of an eye surgeon operating around an optic nerve (or, in the case of Education Minnesota, a street worker jackhammering a piece of cement).

Which brings us to “Protect” Minnesota.

Yesterday, the criminal-safety group gave its “Orange Star” to gubernatorial candidate and state auditor Rebecca Otto.

The Otto campaign, being led by Rebecca Otto – which has been flailing in the candidate count lately, and which fired its manager last week – no doubt took some encouragement in the vote of confidence. It’s probably the only “good” news the Ottos got last week.

And the Orange Star right before the DFL convention might tend to indicate that the group was playing it a little safe, endorsing a female candidate who is anti-gun – but hasn’t wrapped herself around the issue, either.    That’d be an interesting signal of pragmatism from the group.

Well, until a little bit later – when this came out:

On the veritable eve of the convention, they gave another orange star to CD1 congressman and putative front runner Tim Walz, who has flipped from an “A”-rating from the NRA and the Gun Owners Caucus to being a rabid anti (for purposes of swaying the metro progressives he needs to win the convention, no doubt before flopping before the inevitable primary challenge to try to woo outstate voters, including his gun-owning base in the south of the state.

Still – two coveted orange stars would indicate that “Protect” MN was taking a broad, pragmatic stand against Erin Murphy, who has all but made campaign videos of herself pantomiming going door to door to seize guns; she’s that anti-gun.   It’d be an interesting take on “P”M’s part.

Until a few minutes later, when this arrived in our inboxes:

So – on the eve of the DFL convention, “Protect” MInnesota has basically gotten behind…all the DFLers?

They’ll exercise a keen focus on…everyone?

With such mad political skills, it’s hard to believe Nancy Nord Bence hasn’t taken the state by storm.

 

Ghouls Just Want To Have Fun

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Over the Memorial Day weekend “Protect” Minnesota just couldn’t help itself; they had to appropriate a solemn national observance to their mission:

Normally, something like this would end up in me wading into the fever swamp to smack them down.

Especially when you get people like this chiming in:

(Would someone please tell me what the “Right to be Safe” is?   Is it the same as the “Right not to have a car accident?”    There is no such right – merely a responsibility to drive carefully.  There is a responsibility to protect one’s self, family, property and community.  That’s it).

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The Gang That Couldn’t Not Shoot, Straight: Thanks For The Marketing!

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During the many years when Representative Heather Martens ran “Protect” Minnesota, the organization developed a reputation as being dodderingly, genially incompetent – like a neighborhood garden circle where everyone forgot to bring gloves.

In the year or so since the Reverend Nancy Nord Bence took over at “”Protect” Minnesota, the image has morphed into a form of more aggressive, turbocharged incompetence.

As an example:  since Bence took over the group, I think I can count the number of email blasts on the mailing list that haven’t required additions, retractions, or correctioons of mistakes on one hand with a few fingers in change, up to and including erroneous announcements of major grants.

But this past Sunday was the best of all.

The “Pink Pistols” – a group of gays and their allies who promote self-defense under the rubric “Armed Gays don’t get bashed” 0- had a booth at the Minneapolis “Pride” festival, in Loring Park.  The Pistols’ booth usually gets a steady stream of interest – but it’s fair to say the Pistols’ name recognition among gays isn’t a whole lot higher than among the general population.

Enter “Protect” Minnesota.

According to a source in the booth, “P”M was passing around a survey asking if attendees had heard of Pink Pistols.

Which apparently drove a steady stream of curious passersby to the booth for their first introduction to the idea of not being a defenseless victim.

So what you say but “thanks?”

“Protect” Minnesota: The Truth Oozes Out

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One of the great lessons gun controllers learned in the past decade or so is shut up about the real agenda.   Gull the odd gullible gun owner with soothing-yet-ridiculing platitutdes, like “Nobody’s coming for your guns.  All we want is  a conversation about “gun safety” and “violence”.

But  every once in a while, they screw up and tell the truth.  As “Protect” Minnesota did on Monday, in response to a workplace shooting in Orlando (by a man who does not qualify for a carry permit in either Florida or Minnesota):

No automatic alt text available.

And there you go:  “Protect” MN favors licensing gun owners and universal registration – neither of which affect, or or could possibly affect, crime, but both of which can (and repeatedly have been) used to abrogate citizens’ right to keep and bear arms.  “Regulating” weapons that are almost never used in crime, and account for less than 1% of America’s murders, but are deemed politically incorrect.

That’s it.  Game over.  All the soothing platitudes and “don’t worry be happy” rhetoric of the past two decades is here shown to be mere baked wind.

By the way – none of the measures “P”M lists would have affected today’s shooting.  None.

Our Morally Incontinent Would-Be Overlords Speak Again

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This was “Protect” MN’s response to the Big Lake dust-up yesterday:

In what way does this statement do anything but put the Big Lake High School Trap team – high school kids, doing a sport sanctioned by their school, under rigorous supervision, who are learning the safety rules vastly  better than most people (and some cops)  on the same level as Adam Lanza?

This is the loathsome voice of gun control in Minnesota.

UPDATE:  They spiked the post.

So – not only are they loathsome, but they’re cowards.

What’s the matter, “Protect” MN?

Can’t stand behind your words?

No wonder you run away from head-to-head debate.  Every time you open your mouths against people who can defend themselves, you come out looking not-ready-for-prime-time.

UPDATE 2:  According to a source who spoke with WCCO television,  the Reverend Nancy Nord Bence had this to say about the disappearance of the post equivocating the Big Lake Trap Team with Adam Lanza:

[Nord Bence] said: “That post was made without our knowledge and has been deleted.”

Schwoops!  Down the memory hole?

Does Nancy Nord Bence not control “Protect” MN’s website?    Is there a, pardon the expression, loose cannon on their staff?

Much more seriously:   I know that media people read this blog.   Someone please explain why you use these people as a credible source?

  • They have no respect for facts.
  • They make it up as they go along.
  • They are accountable to nobody and nothing.
  • They have never, not once, made a substantial, original, true statement about the gun issue.

What other source would you cut that kind of slack for?

Lie First, Lie Always: Delusions Of Adequacy

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It’s been a frustrating week to be a Real American in Minnesota – an American who believes that law-abiding citizens should have more rights in the eyes of the law than criminals.

More on that tomorrow on the show.  Oh, yes – the show will fairly crackle with rage.

But there’s some comic relief.  Grim comic relief, under the circumstances, but relief nonetheless.

She Who Has Never Made  A Single Substantial, Original, True Statement About The Issue:  It’s been interesting seeing what the Reverend Nancy Nord Bence has rattling around her little ELCA-coiffed noggin.  This was in her email blast yesterday (emphasis added to highlight particularly comic passages by me):

I am pleased to announce that the House public safety committee omnibus bill introduced today in committee does NOT contain the Permitless Carry or Stand Your Ground bills! That was the goal of our Cure Gun Violence lobby day and rally on Tuesday—and we succeeded!

Make no mistake about it – the criminal-protection, black-victim-disarmament lobby, after spending ten times as much as the Real Americans in this past year for almost no results, obtained a victory of sorts, for now.  But they didn’t win it.   It happened due to nothing they did on their own.   Not one iota of it happened due to anything The Reverend Nancy Nord Bence’s fact-free rambling, the sanctimonious preening of the Dreamsicles, or the trunks full o Jacksons that the Bloomberg lobby spent.

No.  The GOP gave it to them.  They “won” a forfeited game.

Leadership in the Senate, apparently rendered pusillanimous via winning the majority, decided to play “protect the incumbents”, even though it’s three years ’til the election.

House leadership, hearing this, decided to play it “safe” – thus earning themselves a raft of well-deserved and impassioned primary challenges supported by a group of people…

…who, I can tell you right now, are pissed off at having their votes courted, but their policies ignored in the breach.

It was the kind of stupid error that makes being a Republican such a trying thing in this Godforsaken state.   How hard is it to dance with the ones that brung you?

But it wasn’t “Protect” MN’s f****ng win.  Those lumpen fossils and caterwauling shrews dominate their little echo chambers in Crocus Hill and Kenwood, and not a hell of a lot more.

The Lesson:  Even after years of winning, and of beating back serious challenges while in the minority, Real Americans not not relax.  We can not be complacent.  We can not trust the party for which most of us worked our asses off.

Lying, Criminal Or Both?

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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.

Chanting Points Memo: Will Susan Perry Ever Stop Treating Readers Like Junior High Kids?

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There must be a legislative session coming up; the MinnPost – a local group-blog funded by liberals with deep pockets employing a rogue’s gallery of recycled local big-media people – is back on the gun beat.

Last week, Susan Perry – their “consumer health reporter”, whose sloppy reporting on this subject we’ve repeatedly, even routinely, beaten up in this space – wrote a fluff piece about a metastudy (a repackaging of the data in other studies) appearing in the Annals of Internal Medicine that shows that having a gun in the home doubles chance of a murder, and triples the chance of suicide.

And it reminded me of an episode from twenty years ago.

Let’s flash back, shall we?

The Gullible, Biased Hack Beat:  Back in the early nineties, the anti-gun media (which was most of them, back then) breathlessly recited a factoid; a study in the New England Journal of Medicine had showed, we were told, that a gun in the home was 43 times as likely to kill the owner, or someone the owner knew, than it was to kill a criminal.

The media reported this uncritically, without question, much less the faintest pretense of analysis of the data that led to that very specific number.

Of course, some Real Americans in the Second Amendment movement did dig into the study, back when “the internet” was still “Usenet” for most people.

They found that the data came from King County, Washington, during a period of several years in the late eighties.  And the “43:1” ratio actually broke out, over the period of time, to nine justifiable deaths of criminals that the shooter didn’t know, against something like 380-odd other firearms deaths.

And of those 380-odd firearm deaths, the vast majority were suicides – enough to account for 36-37 of the “43”.  Of the remaining 6 from the “43” – 50-odd firearms deaths – there were a few accidents; the rest were murders or manslaughters of one kind or another.  And note that it only counted the presence of a gun in the home, not whether it was used; if someone broke into your home and shot you as you were peeling potatoes at your kitchen counter, but there was a gun in the house, it went into the “43”.

Suicide is obviously a problem – but it doesn’t depend on firearms.  Japan, where guns are unobtainable, has double the US’ suicide rate.   But leaving out suicides, the rate dropped to more like six to one.

But there were other clinkers in the way the “43:1”, or even the 6:1, figures were generated, and related to the public by a media that, at best, didn’t know what it was talking about and, at worst, didn’t care.

Walt White Knew Jack Welker!:  The phrase “gun owner or someone they know” was the first problem.

Someone who shoots himself, obviously, is “killing themselves or someone they know”.  But then so is a drug dealer shooting a rival, or a customer that owes them money, is “killing someone they know”, as is a gang-banger shooting a long-time rival So is a woman shooting an ex-husband that’s been stalking and threatening her.  So is someone killing a robber that they had met, even once, ever.

The NEJM study didn’t distinguish between those types of killings.  The “1” in the “43:1” ratio only included justifiable homicides where the shooter had never met the victim.

Why So Bloodthirsty?:  Did you notice that the only “good” results in the New England Journal study – the “1” in “43:1” – were the nine justifiable killings of complete strangers?

Leaving aside the likelihood (indeed, fact) that some of the homicides of acquaintances were justifiable – why is a justifiable killing of a complete, malevolent stranger the only legitimate use of a firearm?

The study didn’t account for deterrences of other crimes.  A gun used to scare away a burglar or a stalker doesn’t have to kill anyone to have a beneficial effect – deterring a felony without a shot being fired.

The Real Results?:  So when you take the numbers from the “43:1” ratio, and then…:

  • factor out suicides (which are a problem, and were the vast majority of the deaths in the study, but are entirely different than crimes committed with malice against others)
  • move the justifiable homicides of “acquaintances” – ex-spouses and the like – into the “good” column”
  • Account for the “bad” shootings that involved someone who was drunk or high, or had a criminal record
  • Add in estimates of the number of crimes that would have been deterred by law-abiding citizens with guns in the same area during the same period

…then the original New England Journal of Medicine study’s numbers came out more like this:

  • A gun in a home in which one or more residents had a criminal record, drinking or drug problem was equally likely to be involved in a murder or unjustified killing as it was to deter a crime.
  • A gun in a home without any of those problems was dozens or hundreds of times as likely to deter a crime (depending on the estimate of deterrences you accepted – from the conservative FBI estimate to the much more expansive estimate by Gary Kleck, which by the way tracks pretty well with the Centers for Disease Control’s recent work on the subject) as to be involved in an unjustifiable homicide.  That’s dozens at least, hundreds at most. 

So How About Sue Perry’s Article?:  A quick scan of the metastudy in Annals shows that it (or, more proximately, the studies it mines for data) does not, in fact, control for…:

  • drug abuse
  • Alcohol abuse
  • criminal records

…among the subjects in the “study”.

Like the reporting on the NEJM study twenty-odd years ago, it considers firearms in a vacuum, without accounting for any of the human factors – criminal activity of the owner, sustance abuse issues, or mental illness.

Neither does it distinguish between justifiable homicide – which accounts for 2-3% of all firearms deaths in America in a given year – and murder, manslaughter or accidental deaths. 

It’s junk science…

…well, no.  It’s junk social science, which is the worst kind.

Susan Perry is doing junk reporting of junk non-science, to report a meaningless, junk conclusion. 

Why?

Remember:  The MinnPost operates with the assistance of a large annual grant from the Joyce Foundation.

Follow the money. Journos do it – when it’s not Alida Messinger or Michael Bloomberg’s money, anyway.

The Joyce Foundation also funds…

  •  “ProtectMN”, the closest Minnesota gets to an actual gun control “organization”,
  • “TakeActionMN”, which essentially serves as an unregulated “progressive” political party whose mission is to drive the DFL to the left.  It may be the most successful political party in Minnesota today – precisely because the laws that apply to the GOP and (to some extent) DFL don’t apply to it. 

 

All “journalism” about guns – and politics and general – from the MinnPost must be considered with that in mind.

So why would the MinnPost publish a continuous chain of stories about Second Amendment issues that range from bad science to bad history to bad scholarship to really, really bad reporting? 

Because, I suggest, it’s what they’re being paid to do.   

There was a time when “journalists” would have recoiled at any suggestion that their coverage was bought and paid for to secure some special interest’s narrative. 

Those days are long past us – to everyone who pays attention.

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

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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 Many Lies Of “Protect” MN, Part XXIII: “Nobody’s Coming For Your Guns!”

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Remember last year, when Representatives Michael Paymar, Heather Martens and Alice “the Phantom” Hausman copied and pasted gun-grab laws from New York, Colorado and California and tried to jam them down in the Legislature?

The orcs insisted “Nobody’s coming to take the guns of the law-abiding!”

We Real Americans knew better.  We always do.

And in New York, it’s happening even as we speak:

Of course, not one incident of “violence” will be prevented.  The criminals won’t be turning anything in.

But you – provided you’re a Real American – know that.  The orcs?  Heather Martens, Jane Kay, Michael Paymar?

Their ends justify their means.

And had Minnesota’s Real Americans not staged a cataclysmic turnout last spring, we could have had virtually the same law.

And if we take our eye off the ball in the coming session, we still could.

A Holiday Present To “Protect” MN

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The Select Committee on Capitol Security met yesterday. 

They moved to hire some new State Patrol and rent-a-cops.   There wasn’t a whole lot of controversy there, although Representative Woodard and Senator Ingebrigtsen noted that security in the parts of the Capitol that need it is already pretty good. 

But the reason reason people paid attention to yesterday’s meeting was because Rep. Michael Paymar intended to push his proposal to ban legally-carried firearms in Capitol complex buildings (the Capitol, the State Office Building and the Judicial building). 

 More than 800 Minnesotans have filed with the DPS to indicate that they have a permit to carry a firearm and may bring their pistol into the Capitol. Originally, the draft recommendation would have required gun owners to update that notification annually; at Ingebrigtsen’s urging, that timeframe was adjusted to renewing the notification every five years, and was adopted by the committee.

In other words, you renew your notification as often as you renew your permit.  Truth be told, I already thought I had to do that…

…if, hypothetically, I had a carry permit and desired to carry at the Capitol. 

After that bit of fairly sensible legislation, it was looney-time:

Paymar argued that the fact that the Capitol had so far been spared any violent altercations was not evidence that current safety measures are adequate.

“Having a ‘cross your fingers’ kind of policy coming out of this entity, which is charged with making recommendations about public safety on the Capitol complex, to me, is irresponsible,” said Paymar, who chairs the House Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee.

Mijnnesota’s carry-permit holders are the single constituency in Minnesota least likely to cause a problem , at the Capitol or anywhere else.  Ever  Period. 

No, seriously – Minnesotans at large commit murder at the rate a little over 2 per 100,000 people per year.  There’s been one unjustified homicide by a carry-permittee in ten years; the math breaks down to .1/5 million Minnesotans/year, or .002/100,000 annually.  That’s right around three orders of magnitude safer. 

Mr. Paymar would more aptly worry about one of his Saint Paul constituents – perhaps the many supporters of terrorist-accomplice Kathleen Soliah, who live in Paymar’s neighborhood and tacitly condoned her activities in the seventies – freaking out and killing people in the Capitol than the state’s legal carry permittees. 

No, this wasn’t done because of any danger, real or perceived or even fabricated.  This was done to try to try to salvage at least a smidgen of “Protect” MN’s narrative from this past session – the addlepated notion that legislators were “intimidated” by gun owners who carried openly and legally during last spring’s epic waste of taxpayer time hearings on Rep. Paymar, Hausman and Martens’ various gun grab bills.  The staff at Capitol Security refute that idea with prejudice; ask them for yourself. 

Emphasis added in this next bit:

Ingebrigtsen pushed back, and pointed out that Gov. Mark Dayton had already said publicly he does not favor a move to ban firearms in the Capitol.

“We’ve also got the governor saying the same thing,” Ingebrigtsen said. “[Dayton] doesn’t see anything wrong with law-abiding citizens carrying handguns on the Capitol complex.”

The vote fell, 2-2 (ties are counted as defeats); Lt. Governor Yvonne Prettner Solon (there’s a trivia question for you) and Paymar voted for it, Ingebrigtsen and Woodard voted nay, SCOM justice Lori Gildea abstained (she might have to hear a court case on the issue someday…)

…and Ann Rest, a DFL Senator from Plymouth who is as electorally bulletproof as an Armored Humvee, didn’t show up. 

Don’t think for a moment that was an accident.  Even safe DFLers are nervous about the Metrocrats’ insane obsession with disarming the law-abiding. 

Not that they’re going to stop them. 

No, that’s our job.  At the ballot box. 

(NOTE TO DFL LEGISLATORS:   If I had a carry permit, I doubt I’d ever carry openly.  It’s not my style.  But feel free to be intimidated – not by any gun I’d hypothetically carry, but by the fact that I can shred through every single actual factual assertion that Heather Martens and Richard Carlbom make about the gun control issue like a riding mower going through a daisy patch, and not break a sweat.  Be intimdated by the fact that if either Martens or Carlbom debated me, or any of 500 other gun rights advocates, in a face to face, open debate, I’d fold them up like origami swans and make them scamper away like scared bunnies.  Be intimidated by the fact that I, myself, have convinced liberal Democrats that you are wrong, and I’m just getting started.  Ignore any gun I might hypothetically be carrying.  Be intimidated by the weapon between my ears.  On this issue, your side is carrying a pellet pistol; I’ve got a .44 Magnum, and I don’t mean one of those wimpy four inch barrels, either)

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

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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

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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.

The Many Lies of “Protect”MN, Part XX: Alinsky RSVPed

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A little bird forwarded me this email from “Protect”MN to its mailing list.  I’ll add emphasis:

You are Invited!

What: A house party fundraiser with Protect Minnesota

When: Monday, November 25, 5:30-7 p.m.

Where: [Redacted] Fremont Ave., Minneapolis [And no, it’s not North Fremont.  Or north of 38th Street South.  If you catch my drift – ed.]

Why: To raise funds for a new campaign to change the conversation around gun violence prevention

 How: By creating a strong new campaign, we will be able to overcome those promoting a culture of gun violence

With comments from: Richard Carlbom, former campaign manager for Minnesotans United for All Families at 6 p.m.

Co-hosted By:

[Cohosts redacted]

Co-host levels available:

$250 – $500

Suggested minimum contribution: $40

And so the Carlbom era of gun control in Minnesota begins.

Before Richard Carlbom, the gay marriage debate in Minnesota was between people who believed in principle that marriage was a gender-blind civil right, and people who believed that it was a religious institution intended for the creation and raising of future generations.

After Carlbom, it became a battle between good, compassionate people who cared about rights, and evil bigots.

And that’s what the anti-civil-rights movement – and its highly-paid consultant, Carlbom – wants to do with the civil right of self defense; frame it as a battle between people who represent a “culture of violence”, and people who believe that with enough laws, we can create a violence-free utopia.

Like Chicago.  Or Washington DC.

“Protect”MN and Carlbom want the uninformed and gullible to conflate “armed self-defense” with gun violence; to lump people like this, this, this, this, this, these and thousands of others in with gang-bangers, thugs and spree killers.

Minneapolis: The Racket Wants To Strike Back

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Minneapolis has always wanted to roll back Minnesota’s “Pre-emption statute”, which prevents city governments from enacting gun laws different (especially more stringent) than state law.

And they’ve been lobbying to change that as long as I’ve been aware of the issue – and that’s getting to be a long time, now.

“Ron V” of the Minnesotans for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms blog notes that the City is not above lying through its teeth to try to do it.   Mr. V writes:

The (post Sandy Hook) Minneapolis City Council Legislative Agenda on Firearms recommendations were prepared by Melissa Lesch, Intergovernmental Relations Specialist, and WIFE OF REP. JOHN LESCH (66B DFL), who was one of the MN legislators leading the gun control charge in the Minnesota legislature post Sandy Hook.

[Minneapolis Police Department assistant chief Matt] Clark testified before the city council at the request of Melissa Lesch/IGR. Included in the recommendations from Melissa Lesch/IGR was full support for Obama’s extremist federal gun-grab agenda. The Legislative Agenda ultimately approved by the city council included:

–A plan to use the city’s weight to lobby the state legislature for the repeal of the state pre-emption provision currently included in Minnesota’s right-to-carry law (MN 624.714).

Meaning, the city of Minneapolis wants to be able to override state law and set its own ordinances in regard to permit holders and gun owners who live in, travel through or visit the city of Minneapolis by implementing ordinances to:

—-Require concealed carry and outlaw open carry by lawful permit holders within the city limits of Minneapolis;

—-Ban lawful carry from parks and public buildings within Minneapolis;

—-Ban common use semi-automatic firearms and standard capacity magazines within city limits;

—-Require that permit-to-carry applications be approved by local police chiefs (returning to arbitrary “may issue” standards);

—-Deny the 2nd Amendment rights of any person who has experienced a “mental health incident that required the intervention of law enforcement” or anyone who has ever been placed on a 72 hour hold;

—-Add additional regulations to the transfer of firearms;

—-And a number of other vaguely worded recommendations designed to allow infringement of 2nd Amendment rights

Nothing new, there.

Here’s the rub;  Minneapolis is lying, via its police department, about the data it’s using to try to convince the legislature.

Here are the verbatim statements made by asst. chief Matt Clark during the testimony:

—-“We’ve had incidents where handgun owners have had handguns taken away from them. Where they have lost those firearms because somebody knew they had them on their person, and they specifically took it away from those individuals.”

—-“What we’re looking for… is that if you have a permit to carry a firearm that it [be] concealed in public. We have a lot of calls from constituents, individuals, residents, visitors that are very ‘shocked and surprised’ to see a handgun on somebody out in the open…”

As to the latter?  In parts of this world, people are “shocked and surprised” to see same-sex couples, women without headscarves walking without male relatives, or Jews without Stars of David on their person.  We don’t dignify any of those, either.

But it’s the former that Mr. V went after:

Following those statements by asst. chief Clark in January, I immediately made several attempts to contact asst. chief Clark and chief Harteau, as well as the MPD public information officer, to request the data upon which Clark’s testimony was based…After multiple attempts over several months to get the information, I NEVER received a response from Clark or Harteau, and finally filed a Data Practices Request with the city of Minneapolis to get the information on which his testimony was based.

Mr. V requested the info and math behind the dates, places and case numbers of incidents where people openly carrying firearms had their guns stolen – and of course whether they were carry-permittees carrying legally at the time.

And the result?

In total, the response to my Data Practices Request for the cases used as the basis for Clark’s testimony to the city council includes 15 incidents between 2000 – 2012 where a firearm was taken during a crime incident, NONE OF WHICH INCLUDE an incident where a firearm was taken from a lawful permit holder while open carrying in a public place. The 15 incidents they tried to palm off as citations for Clark’s testimony include:

–Six (6) Robbery of dwelling (that’s NOT a permit holder lawfully open carrying in public…

–Four (4) Car-jackings (that’s NOT a permit holder lawfully open carrying in public…

–Two (2) Business robberies where a store gun was taken (that’s NOT a permit holder lawfully open carrying in public…

–Two (2) Random street robberies where one female had a gun in her purse, and the other, which made the news last spring, was a guy randomly attacked who had a permit but his gun was concealed in his pocket …

–One (1) incident where a holstered firearm was taken from a victim IN HIS OWN YARD BY SOMEONE HE KNEW (that’s NOT a permit holder lawfully open carrying in public…

If “ProtectMN” and its official minions couldn’t lie, they’d be silent.

The Many Lies Of “Protect”MN, Part XIX

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I was going to title the piece “Rep. Heather Martens:  Her Lips Are Moving” – but now that Protect MN has hired Richard Carlbom, the PR father of gay marriage in Minnesota, I have to upgrade my approach.

Because while Representative Martens has never made a substantive true claim in all her years of working for victim disarmament in Minnesota, it’s time to start tracking Carlbom by the same standards.

An email went out to “Protect”MN supporters the other day.  Here was the money quote:

Click here to sign the petition urging our lawmakers to renew the Undetectable Firearms Act before it expires on December 9…

… Guns without a certain amount of metal can slip by metal detectors in public places. There is no reason responsible gun owners would need to have unconventional weapons like these. The Undetectable Firearms Act keeps guns that evade critical security measures off the streets. The law is set to expire on December 9. We urge legislators to renew the Undetectable Firearms Act to keep these dangerous guns away from airports, courtrooms, and other public places.

Now, the fact is that no such weapons have ever been produced.

And not only does every single gun owner know it, but so do the Feds.  Neither the Departments of the Treasury or Justice have ever enacted any regulations pursuant to the “Undetectable Firearms Act”…

…because there’s nothing to regulate.

Zilch.

The “Undetectable Firearms Act” is an utterly empty gesture.  It affects no crime.  It affects no manufacturing.  It is yet another empty gesture that groups like “Protect”MN flop in front of their ill-informed followers to give their shapeless concerns some rallying point.

I responded to the petition:

It’s not. This is empty legislation – even the feds have not bothered to enact any regulations due to this “act”, because *it refers to weapons that don’t exist*. There ARE no “undetectable firearms”.

“Protect”MN is lying. Again.

I think that sums it up.