Tag Archives: Rev. Nancy Nord Bence

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.

Lie First, Lie Always: We’ve Been Through This, Right?

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As we noted earlier this week, Roseau County became Minnesota’s first Second Amendment Sanctuary county.

And you just knew the “Reverend” Nancy Nord Bence wouldn’t take long for an…

…er…

…er, “interesting” take on the situation.

But she pretty much outdid herself on Twitter:

The county commission was “bullied”? Huh. Sounds serious. Was there anything to “Protect” MN’s claim?

Sheesh. It’s the “Reverend” Nancy Nord Bence. We’ve been through this before, right?

A Roseau County Commissioner left a comment on “Protect” MN’s Facebook page:

“Completely made-up”.

What concerns me here is this: leftists pretty much up and down the food chain, from Nancy Pelosi down to “Reverend” Nord Bence, have learned that their constituency just doesn’t do critical thinking. If they say something, they know there’s not going to be anyone catching them after the rally trying to check them on any of it.

BIg Left is building a legion of the invincibly ignorant.

And while it’s not working in Roseau County, the post about Roseau County wasn’t aimed at rural Minnesota. It’s aimed at trying to keep the hordes of people in the third ring suburbs who voted DFL terrified.

Will it work?

This Is Nancy Nord Bence’s Mind On…Er…Does Anyone Actually Know?

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“Protect” Minnesota – which, as we all know, is Nancy Nord Bence and a bunch of the kind of people who think armed churchgoers are a bad thing, but only if they have never shot anyone and will never shoot anyone – posted this on social media last week:

So – prohibition doesn’t work, and people who want to flout laws will seek what they want on a black market which will leap to fill the demand, with the higher price enforced by the legal risk to the product…

…but “Universal Background Checks” will curb crime!

The reason we say gun grabbers are irrational bobbleheads is, they are irrational bobbleheads.

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.

And When I Say “The Reverend Nancy Nord Bence Has Never Said Anything About The Gun Issue That Is Simultaneously Original, Substantial And True…

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…that statement would seem to have spread to statements about her own “group”.

Bear with me.

“Protect” Minnesota was at Game Fair over the last two weekends. Game Fair is pretty much the biggest outdoor sports fair in the state; hunting, fishing, dogs, the whole nine yards. It takes place in deep-red Ramsay.

And “Protect” MN, for some reason, had a booth there.

Or so the Reverend Nord Bence reminds us:

So let’s get this straight – you gave away free stuff (of some marginal utility – cheap trigger locks), and people took them?

And 130 people out of tens of thousands of attendees, many of whom don’t understand what gun control will mean to them in the long term, lined up and talked and signed your meaningless petition?

Shazam.

So you know what would really convince me? If thousands of these rando hunters grabbed “Protect” Minnesota t-shirts, and wore them proudly around and about the game fair, showing the world that the tide was turning!

And did that happen?

Take a gander for yourself:

This is one of two loads being packed out to their Prius (OK, I made the car up) at the end of six days of exhibiting. The other load was equally as full.

If they gave away a dozen t-shirts, I’d be amazed – and I’ll bet dimes to dollars all are being used as bore patches today.

The Reverend Nord Bence:

If her lips are moving, don’t believe her.

At Long Last “Honesty” (Of A Sort) (Sort Of)

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The Reverend Nancy Nord Bence has never, not once, made a statement about guns, gun owners, gun crime, gun laws, the 2nd Amendment’s meaning and history that is simultaneously original, substantial and true.

Not once.

Her news release earlier this week wasn’t “honest”, per se – but it was unusual in its frankness.

Because while Nord Bence, like all gun grabbers, will condescendingly coo “nobody’s coming for your guns” when asked, well, she wants to come for your guns.

You can read the release here. By the way – in a medium, the press release, that favors economy and succinctness, the Reverend writes the most gaseous, verbose excrescences ever to grace a circular file. The meme blow is the TL:dr version:

The Reverend Nancy Nord Bence: Lying Now, Lying Then, Lying Always

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If you only take one message away from this blog, it should be…

Well, it should be “Freedom is good and must be defended without reset, since tyranny never sleeps”. 

But if you take another message from this blog, it’s…

…well, Berg’s Seventh Law. 

But if you get three messages from this blog, number three should be “The Reverend Nancy Nord Bence and “Protect” Minnedsota have never, not once, made a statement about guns, gun rights, gun laws, gun crime, gun crime stats, gun rights groups, or the history, construction or meaning of the 2nd Amendment that is simultaneously substantial, original and true.  

As such, it’s almost pointless to “fact-check: the Lying Reverend:  it’s like looking for damp spots in an aquarium. 

But this particular social media excrescence deserves attention for its special level of depravity:

Take a moment to enjoy the battle between racism and illogic – if one is “never” safer with a gun (statistically untrue, but work with me here), how can some state be “Especially” never?  Infantilizing black people much?  And it’s not the gun that makes black carry permittees unsafe; in this case, it was the panicky cop.  

Worse?  To the “Reverend” Nord Bence, while people with carry permits are hapless delusional morons, if they’re black, they are apparently even less competent.  

But take your leave of that bit of frivolity for a moment, and note the record show that the MInnesota Gun Owners Caucus neither “remained silent” nor “defended” Officer Yanez – the Caucus was on the record and on TV defending our fellow law-abiding citizen before the “Reverend” Nord Bence knew the name of the guy she was stereotyping:

https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2016/11/16/philando-permit/

Castile did not say he had a permit, but he did say he had a gun. In general, that is what firearms instructors teach, according to Rob Doar, a leader of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus and a firearms safety instructor…“I recommend that you turn the car off, you turn the lights on in the vehicle, you keep your hands on the wheel,” Doar said. “I do believe that Philando Castile acted as a responsible permit holder.”

If is a given that if the “Reverend” Nord Bence says it, and it’s about anything to do with guns, presume it’s contemptuous bull***t.

The casual racism – while predicable from the lily-white turnout and lily-whiter locations of all “P”M events – s new.

Orange You Disappointed You Didn’t Get An Invite?

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SCENE: A meeting of the “Protect” MInnesota governing board. The Reverend Nancy Nord Bence presides over a room with half a dozen middle-aged, white men and women with ELCA hair (short, unadorned gray for the ladies; close cropped gray hair and neatly-trimmed Progressive-standard beards for the males).

NORD BENCE: OK, I call this meeting of the governing board of Protect Minnesota to order. Miss Scat, would you please give the membership report?

CAT SCAT: Unchanged from last meeting, at [NORD BENCE coughs over BIRKENSTOCK’s report] members.

NORD BENCE: OK, Mizz Stromberg, the treasurer’s report?

GRETEL STROMBERG: We got another Bloomberg check. Why bother counting?

(Applause ensues)

NORD BENCE: Order! OK. New business?

( Chauncey GUNDERSON, a 50-something man with raffish but neatly trimmed gray hair and a tightly trimmed gray beard – like every other man in the room over the age of 35 – and a representative from an ELCA church in Edina, raises his hand:)

NORD BENCE: Mr. Gunderson?

GUNDERSON: Yes, Madame Executive Director. I’m wondering – there’s this impression I’ve heard people talk about saying that Protect Minnesota is a bunch of smug, entitled, white, suburban, upper middle class people who are out of touch with the reality of this issue.

NORD BENCE: ( Looks around room at the small group of smug, entitled, white, suburban, upper middle class people ) Well, clearly it’s a scientific fact that that’s utterly absurd!

MARGE GUSTAFFSEN: But I’ve heard this, too.

NORD BENCE: While it is utterly absurd, I am willing to entertain ideas to address it.

AVERY LIBRELLE: I’ve got an idea. Let’s debunk the notion that Protect Minnesota is a bunch of smug, entitled, white, suburban, upper middle class people by holding a cocktail party at a swanky club!

NORD BENCE: I like it! Social media director BIrkenstock?

MOONBEAM BIRKENSTOCK: Already on it. I set up the event and put out the invites on Facebook!

NORD BENCE: Oooh! Let’s see!

BIRKENSTOCK: Here. Let me show you:

NORD BENCE: I like it! OK – next order of business…

And SCENE

NOTE: The scene above is probably mostly fictional. Except for the ad. And the event. And the cocktail.

Oops! She Did It Again!

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“Protect” Minnesota – most likely their “executive director” and one of very few actual members, the Reverend Nancy Nord Bence – reported on what the belived to be their bete noir, a good guy with a gun, doing something allegedly stupid and horrible.

Oh, no!

On the one hand, it touches all “P”M’s hot buttons: a gun and a civilian. Sounds bad.

But on the other hand, you need to remember – the Reverend (and, really, any anti-gun leader) has never, not once, said anything about guns, gun owners, the 2nd Amendment or its history, gun laws, crime or statistics that is simultaneously substantial, original and true.

With that in mind, you need to merely cast a wider net. Was this an example of a “good guy with a gun” getting into a squabble and blazing away?

Look a little closer.

Oh.

I think we’re on the brink of a Berg’s 21st Law: “The Reverend Nancy Nord Bence’s first draft is never right, and almost always comical”.

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…:

Every Time You Read Nancy Nord Bence, You Get A Little Dumber

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First things first:  Kenneth Lilly, the security guard alleged to have shot the bus driver on 35W the other day, has been charged with attempted murder, among other things.  

And it’s seem, from watching the video, to be a fair cop.  To use a gun in self-defense – we’ve been through this before – you need to satisfy four criteria in the state of Minnesota:

  1. You can’t be the aggressor.
  2. You must reasonably fear immediate death or great bodily harm. 
  3. You must only use the force necessary to end the threat. 
  4. You must make a reasonable effort to retreat.  

You need to satisfy all four of those criteria (unless you’re in your house, in which case only “only” need to check off the first three.  

This will be for a jury (or, more likely than not, the defendant, his lawyer and the judge) to decide – but it looks like Lilly blew 1, 2 and 4 completely.   

Of course, those who get their “information” from local gun-grab scolds “Protect” Minnesota will get a version of events that would make Baghdad Bob wince with Schadenfreud. 

 

Where to start with this – words fail me – horsecrap?

“I’m afraid I might get killed, now” is a part of every legitimate self-defense claim. No exceptions! It has nothing to do with “Stand your Ground”, which – thanks for nothing, Governor Goofy – is not the law in Minnesota anyway.

But the law doesn’t require that you “feel afraid”. The law requires that you “reasonably” fear death or great bodily harm – and by “reasonable”, we mean “an investigator, prosecutor, judge or jury believes it”.

Invoking “stand your ground” means either the writer – almost certainly the invincibly ignorant Reverend Nord Bence – doesn’t know what she’s talking about, or she doesn’t really think it matters if her audience doesn’t get the truth or, and this is my bet, both.  

It’s almost a Berg’s Law.

Nancying The News

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The Reverend Nancy Nord Bence had a red-letter day yesterday. 

And by “Red Letter Day”, we mean “a day where she passed on more lies and ignorance than normal”. 

In fact, today is going to be a rare Bence Bifecta.

Remember – “Protect” Minnesota and its leadership have never, not once, made a statement about guns, gun owners, gun history, gun laws or the Second Amendment that is simultaneously:

  • Original
  • Substantial
  • True

You may get one out of three. Sometimes two. Never three.

But this? The Reverend Nord Bence gets zero:

Except that if you win a gun at a raffle, you do take a background check.

I’m still amazed that anyone in the media uses her as a source.

Advice

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I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it at least once a month until “Protect” MInnesota finally gets laughed out of polite company in this state: the local gun grab group and its arious leaders – the “Reverend” Nancy Nord Bence today, Rep. Heather Martens before her – have never, not once, made a single statement about guns, gun owners, gun laws, gun crime, gun history or the use of firearms that is simultaneously

  • Original
  • Substantial
  • True.

You get plenty of statements where one might be the case, and a few with two out of three. But never, not once, have they made or will they hit all three.

Ever.

This meme from last week is different, in that it doesn’t even get one out of three completely correct.

They’re fantasizing:

So let’s make sure the stage is set: you’re in a mass shooting, and the shooting is underway.    “Several people have already been shot”, although the writer doesn’t see fit to mention that you could be one of them very, very shortly, here.

The writer doesn’t know much about exposition.

They know less, naturally, about gun laws: when they write “you pull out your gun and rush off to be a hero”, they apparently think Taken is a documentary. For better or worse, it’s bad legal (and, likely, tactical) form to go rushing to the sound of the guns.

Shooters know this.

The “Reverend” Nancy Nord Bence apparently does not.

Of the four resolutions they list?

The shooter sees you and shoots first: you mean, they do what the shooter will likely get around to doing, anyway, given that they’re a spree killer?

Do they really think the would-be “hero” is any worse off under this scenario?

Another good samaritan shoots you by mistake: That’s right – two good guys with guns, both seeing an active shooter, shoot the wrong person. It could happen, in the same sense that Nancy Nord Bence could make a coherent point. Again – given that one is likely going to get killed by the active shooter – which they seem to keep forgetting – I’m hard-pressed to see how the “heroes” are any worse off than if neither was armed.

Police see you “running around” and shoot you anyway: If the “hero” is “running around”, they’re doing it wrong.

You, the hero, shoot an innocent bystander: It could in theory happen. And if it does, the would-be hero would be in deep trouble, if the spree killer in the room doesn’t kill him first.

Thing is, you can look long and hard and never find an example of this happening, because good guys with guns tend overwhelmingly to do the right thing.  

Indeed, except for the cops shooting the “Hero” (it’s happened), neither I nor, let’s be honest, the “Reverend” Nord Bence can think of any examples of any of those happening – certainly nowhere near as many as the heroes who’ve ended mass shootings.

Apparently the “Reverend” Nord Bence thinks it’s better to die quietly.

Why does the “Reverend” hate innocent victims?

A Good Guy With A Gun – And One Lucky Cop

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Arizona man saves a state trooper’s life after an ambush on I-10 following a “shots fired’ radio call that led the officer to a crashed car and a mortally-injured woman:

[Arizona Department of Public Safety director Col. Frank Milstead] said as the trooper began blocking off lanes of traffic and laying out flares, he was ambushed by the suspect.
The suspect shot the trooper in the right shoulder, and was “getting the better of the trooper” in a fight that immediately followed.
Milstead said the suspect was on top of the trooper striking his head on the pavement.
According to Milstead, a man traveling westbound on I-10 with his wife in the car, pulled over to help the trooper.
The man retrieved a gun from his car and fired at the suspect after the suspect refused to stop attacking the trooper, Milstead said.
The suspect died as a result of the shooting and the man called for help using the trooper’s radio, according to Milstead.
In a news conference from the hospital where the trooper is being cared for, Milstead thanked the man who stopped to help.

If Nancy Nord Bence had her way, they’d still be scraping the trooper’s brains off the pavement.

Lie First, Lie Always: An Open Letter To The Reverend Nancy Nord Bence

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To:   The Reverend Nancy Nord Bence
From:  Mitch Berg, Irascible Peasant
Re:  Think.  Think Really Really Hard

Rev.  Nord Bence,

Over the weekend, you posted this on “Protect” MN’s Facebook page:

Over the years, I’ve pointed out – with absolute accuracy – that you have never made a single statement about guns, gun owners, gun history, gun laws, the 2nd Amendment or gun crime that was simultaneously substantial, original and true.  

Here’s the good news:   your claims above are substantial, and, er, “original”.  But they are howlers. 

Run Awaaaaaaay:   First – you say “police in Minnesota can already use the Stand Your Ground defense”. 

Well, yeah.  That’s right.  The police don’t have a “duty to retreat” when doing their jobs.   Unlike civilians, they are supposed to run toward trouble.   

They don’t have “Stand your Ground”.   They have “Qualified Immunity” – not only no obligation to try to retreat, but a mulligan for mistakes made in generally good faith in the line of duty. 

Question for you, “Reverend” Nord Bence:  Would you prefer that police also be required to run away from criminals?  

Just curious. 

Shoot Off Your Unqualified Mouth First, As Questions Later:  Next comes the notion that self-defense reform would give citizens “the same right to shoot first and ask questions later” that cops “have”. 

Nope.  It merely means that citizens don’t have to convince a county attorney that they tried hard enough to run away from a threat (that was otherwise a reasonable threat of death or grave injury), provided you were anyplace you had a legal reason to be. 

That’s it.  

It’s not a license to kill. 

And I suspect you know that – and are lying anyway, to logroll the gullible dolts who take you seriously.   

Either that or you are a deeply, deeply stupid person.  

My money says “both”. 

That is all.  

 

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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Lie First, Lie Always: Nancy Nord Bence Goes Full-Bore Ghoul (CORRECTION: It Was Erin Maye Quade)

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I went to a League of Women Voters’ panel forum on “Gun Violence” in Burnsville last night.

It was actually a fairly even-handed forum; the LWV volunteer who did the initial setup of the topic, “Emily” (didn’t catch the last name) gave an incredibly even-handed presentation on the facts of the “gun debate” – most of which made Reverend Nord Bence visibly hot under the collar, as an even-handed factual appraisal makes her look completely detached from reality.

The forum included Rev.  Nord Bence and soon-to-be former legislator and no-doubt soon-to-be non-profit exec Erin Maye Quade, against Bryan Strawser of the MN Gun Owners Caucus and Rep. Steve Drazkowski of Mazeppa, one of the stronger pro RKBA voters in the legislature.

It went about as expected:   Nord Bence’s record of never having made a statement about guns, gun owners, gun laws, gun facts or gun history that is simultaneously original, substantial and true remains undisturbed.

And she showed the sense of entitlement during the forum, repeatedly interrupting Strawser and Drazkowski, so often and flagrantly that she LWV organizers had to chide her (to a round of audience applause).

But at one point, Bence’s Maye Quade’s bully-girl fabulism collided with her inner ghoul:   when Rep. Drazkowski noted that the best response to a bad guy with a gun was a good guy with a gun,, Bence Maye Quade responded by telling a story about a man who’d responded to a violent attack, and gotten shot for his troubles.

I had to go find  that story    Here it is.    And as usual, it shows that Bence and Maye Quade, like all gun control activists, is lying, wouldn’t know context if it bit them, and are a ghouls to boot.

When police arrived after reports of a shooting over the weekend at a bar outside Chicago, witnesses say Jemel Roberson, a 26-year-old security guard who worked there, had already subdued the alleged assailant, pinning him to the ground.

Adam Harris, who was at Manny’s Blue Bar in Robbins at the time of the incident on Sunday, told WGN-TV that Roberson was holding “somebody on the ground with his knee in his back, with his gun in his back” when officers from neighboring Midlothian got there early Sunday.

Midlothian Police Chief Daniel Delaney said that’s when one of his officers “encountered a subject with a gun” and shot him, according to a statement given to the media.

But the “subject” was Roberson, not the suspect in the bar shooting.

It’s every carry permittee’s worst nightmare – being mistaken for the bad guy when a cop,  arriving at an incident they’ve only heard about on the radio,  under life-or-death stress, decides any gun is a threat and shoots you.

Which happens.

And is vanishingly rare.

And appears not to have even been the issue in this incident – the gun wasn’t Roberson’s so he wasn’t the good guy with the gun; he was the good guy who seized the gun from the actual perp.

For Bence Maye Quade to use this episode to try to impugn the “Good Guy With A Gun” idea is loathsome.  Clearly “shame” is a lot to ask after a career as a serial liar.

I guess we should expect no better for this used car saleswoman in Lutheran minister’s robes.

CORRECTION:  I was wrong.  It was Erin Maye Quade.  Doesn’t change the point.

This Is Minnesota’s Gun Control Movement In Action

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Gun control groups don’t care about saving lives.

It’s true in big ways – you will never see a gun control group, or at least not one of the main line, lily white ones like Everytown Julie one of their protest in any American inner city, which is where the vast majority of the “gun violence” actually happens. In fact, you could hear some of their partisans even trying to change the subject back when the topic strange away from school shootings.

So there’s that.

But just to further illustrate the movements depravity – and I use that term with full knowledge of what it actually means – look at this little bit of social media effluvia from “Protect” Minnesota from the other one

I’m not sure if I have ever seen and less responsible posting – even for a bunch of teenagers.

But this should clarify things; the “Gone Safety” movement hasn’t the foggiest thing to do with saving lives. It’s about controlling society.

And it seems I owe Heather Martens an apology. For years I said, not joking in the most remote way, that she had never, not once, made a single original, true, substantial statement about guns, gun owners, gun control, gun history or anything to do with the subject. And that was absolutely true.

But the Reverend Nancy Nord Bence – who replaced Heather as director of “Protect” Minnesota – Adds a little extra twist to the formula; she seems to generally despise human beings. Which seems an odd trade in a Lutheran minister.

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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Nancy Nord Bence Throws In The Towel

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The Reverend Nord Bence sent out one of her tl;dr news releases yesterday, including this curious little passage:

There will be no Protect Minnesota protest at the Capitol today.

The pro-gun rights Majority is dug in, no sensible gun bills will be passed today, and we’re not going to give them the satisfaction of smugly walking past our protesters any more this session.

Now, if you’re not Nancy Nord Bence, you might think that today – the last substantive day of legislative activity, when all anti-gun bills have been scrubbed from existence – would be the perfect day to go to the capitol in your ELCA hair and your orange shirt and your waves of uninformed sanctimony and try to gun-shame some people who were elected by a decisive majority of voters.

And you’d be right!

But then this isn’t about Nancy Nord Bence wanting to send a moral message by her/their absence.

No. It’s about this:

Photo courtesy Brian McDaniel.

They rallied on Saturday, when there was still a long shot of getting something passed (had hell frozen over on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon).  Nancy Nord Bence put out a call for warm, uninformed bodies to come to the capitol to shake down the thunder on the legislators.

And that’s what they got.

Nord Bence tried to put a brave face on it:

They’ve made their beds. We will remember. And we’ll spend all summer and fall helping the electorate to remember as well.

Oh, so will I, Nancy.

So will I.

Blowback

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The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus has responded to “Protect” MN’s slanderous Facebook post yesterday:

On Wednesday August 9th, local gun control activist group Protect Minnesota published a statement on their Facebook page implying that the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus has information on the attack at the Dar Al Farooq Mosque, and was withholding that information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“We are outraged by these libelous, defamatory, and false accusations made by Protect Minnesota, “ said Bryan Strawser, Chair, Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus. “Our organization is committed to the defense of civil rights. This statement and its implications are baseless and offensive. Needless to say, we have no information on this tragic attack.”

“It’s truly unfortunate that at a time when we should be pulling together as a community to condemn terror, Protect Minnesota has chosen to engage in accusations that have no basis in fact and will only serve to distract investigators from swiftly bringing the perpetrator of this heinous act to justice.”

“Sadly, this approach has become the norm under their current leadership, “ added Rob Doar, Vice President & Political Director. “We always welcome thoughtful conversation on policy issues with any organization. Engaging in false accusations and misinformation following an incident of this magnitude is abhorrent. I sincerely hope that Protect Minnesota will cease this behavior and elevate their level of discourse.”

“We demand an immediate public retraction of these false assertions,” added Strawser.

Doar’s aside about “current leadership” is important:  while Heather Martens was a doddering incompetent, Nancy Nord Bence is a smug, passive-aggressive, entitled incompetent.

UPDATE:  No apology, naturally – but they’re trying to stuff their slander down the memory hole:

Well, aren’t they just a bunch  of profiles in courage?

They know their audience is neither curious nor critical enough to bother with the details.  But Nancy Nord Bence’s oompa-loompas are getting lazier and more reckless as they move out toward the extreme.  It’s eventually gonna cost ’em.

It’s already cost them their credibility.

Lie First, Lie Always: Slander

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We’ve been pointing out for years – correctly – that “Protect” Minnesota has never, not once, made a single statement that is simultaneously original, substantial and true.

But today, the’ve slid over the line into slander.

“We hope that groups like Minnesota Gun Rights, Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus and Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance can provide good information to the FBI to find and arrest the people responsible” for the Dar Al Farook firebombing?

Even by Nancy Nord Bence’s, er, casual standards of honesty and integrity, this is – pardon the middle-English – chickenshit.

And in a jiust world, it’d be actionable.  Let’s review from a couple years ago; Defmation – Libel and Slander – are when Party A says something about Party B that:

  • Is untrue
  • Can damage Party B’s livelihood and reputation in the community
  • If Party B is a public figure (and the three groups that Nord Bence slandered certainly are),  it can be shown that Party A acted with a malicious disregard for fact.

“P”M’s claim that any Minnesota 2nd Amendment group knows who bombed Dar Al Farook is certainly untrue.  Accusations of abetting terrorism are certainly damaging to a community non-profit group.  And given Nancy Nord Bence and her associates’ long record of scabrous attacks on GOCRA and MNGOC, malice isn’t a huge stretch.

If the gun groups want to sue, I’ll set up a kickstarter to raise funds.

PS to lawyers in the audience:  Yep.  I know.  Negligence is a defense against the “Malicious Intent” element.  It says something that “P”M’s big defense in this case is “We’re too stupid and morally bankrupt to know any better”.  God bless America.