{"id":39721,"date":"2013-11-12T12:00:05","date_gmt":"2013-11-12T18:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=39721"},"modified":"2014-12-12T14:51:22","modified_gmt":"2014-12-12T20:51:22","slug":"carpetbaggers-a-seat-at-the-bar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=39721","title":{"rendered":"Carpetbaggers: Of Moo And Cow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, we looked at a troika of “gun rights” groups and their singular and plural records.<\/p>\n

Last Tuesday, we\u00a0showed you a fundraising letter for a group called\u00a0Minnesota Gun Rights\u00a0<\/a>(MGR) that Minnesota Second Amendment activists have been getting. \u00a0In the letter – from “Minnesota Gun Rights”\u00a0executive director Chris Dorr –\u00a0the sky will fall if the reader doesn’t support the group.<\/p>\n

Wednesday,\u00a0we got a perspective from Iowa\u00a0<\/a>on the effectiveness of the Iowa Gun Owners (IGO), run by Aaron Dorr, the brother of MGR’s Executive Director – or, according to an Iowa legislator who’s seen it first hand, the lack of effectiveness.<\/p>\n

Thursday<\/a>\u00a0we looked at the ties between the Dorr brothers and the scandal that rocked the Michele Bachmann campaign in Iowa – and to the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR), a group that earned a reputation for having a big bark but not much bite for the relative impotence of its battle against the anti-rights onslaught in Colorado last session.\u00a0 We also noted that “Minnesotagunrights.org” is actually registered in Van Meter Iowa.<\/p>\n

Friday, we showed that an alarmist fund-raising letter aimed at Minnesotans\u00a0from the NAGR’s Dudley Brown, that\u00a0was wrong on nearly every possible point<\/a>\u00a0– almost too devoid of fact to have come from Heather Martens.<\/p>\n

And today?<\/p>\n

More on that in a moment.<\/p>\n

In Defense<\/strong>:\u00a0 Last week, a local Libertarian activist well-known for his involvement in the “Ron Paul” clicque takeover of parts of the MN GOP in 2012 posted the following on his Facebook page.\u00a0 I won’t name the activist here; let’s call him “Paul Robertson” just to avoid confusion.<\/p>\n

I’m adding emphasis:<\/p>\n

I have met Chris Dorr and and have worked some of the people helping him on projects in the state. A recent hit piece from a Minnesota establishment blogger<\/strong> noted the connection Chris has to the National Association for Gun Rights.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m an “establishment blogger?”<\/p>\n

Who knew?<\/p>\n

I digress:<\/p>\n

NAGR operations chief Dudley Brown is an effective political operative who, an as RNC Rules Committeemember, was a leader at the national convention fighting the establishment power grab<\/strong>. One gets onto the RNC Rules committee by earning the support of entire state and CD conventions, something that is impossible for sham groups to do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And there’s the point, right there.<\/p>\n

Forget for a moment that “Mr. Robertson” is referring to Mr. Brown’s role in the picayune rules battle at the last Republican National Convention that pitted “the establishment” against the thin coterie of Ron Paul delegates (a rules change I oppose, for what very little it’s worth).<\/p>\n

The two responses to this are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. So What?<\/strong>:\u00a0\u00a0 The most <\/em>we can take from “Mr. Robertson’s” statement is that Mr. Brown can organize caucusees into a group that creates a ruckus to no real immediate effect.<\/li>\n
  2. That’s What!<\/strong>:\u00a0 Badda bing.\u00a0 Re-read #1.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In party politics as well as gun politics, Dudley Brown of the National Association for Gun Rights would seem – by his record, even as emphasized by his local supporter, the pseudonymic “Mr. Robertson” – to be about making the big, “my way or the highway” policy pronouncements that drum up much noise but signify little-to-nothing.<\/p>\n

    Now, there’s nothing wrong with noise.\u00a0 And Minnesota’s current gun-rights groups – MN-RKBA, GOCRA, and even the NRA (which for the first time in my 25 years of watching the issue in this state is finally starting to take an active role at the Capitol)\u00a0create plenty of it.\u00a0 Over this past session, they put thousands of people into meeting rooms, and mobilized tens of thousands of phone calls, emails and letters.\u00a0 Minnesota’s legislators know where the people of Minnesota stand on the issue – which is why even though the DFL controls the legislature and the governor’s office, and their financial supporters are buying support in the mainstream media<\/a>, the anti-rights agenda was humiliated this past session.<\/p>\n

    But there needs to be more than just noise.\u00a0 If a group can’t deliver results at the Capitol in terms of bad policy shot down and good policy enacted, then why support them?<\/p>\n

    Minnesota’s gun rights groups – NRA, GOCRA\/GOAL, MN-RKBA and the rest – have a record of not just making noise, but winning battles<\/em>.\u00a0 Of not just getting people riled up, but getting them focused in a direction that, in good times, expands the human right of self-defense.\u00a0 Never forget – the battle for “shall issue” carry permitting lasted 10 years, <\/em>from 1995 to 2005.\u00a0 The\u00a0goal was achieved not just by getting people riled up – but by focusing all that passion on results.\u00a0 And frequently needing to do it against adversity; remember, the DFL controlled the legislature before 2002, and have held at least one chamber for all but two years in recent memory.\u00a0 And we’ve had exactly eight years of\u00a0conservative-enough governor in the past thirty (forget about Jesse Ventura).<\/p>\n

    The Challenge<\/strong>: \u00a0 But there’s certainly a market for groups in any facet of politics, including Gun Rights, that lead with “death or glory”; “our way or the highway”. \u00a0Gun Owners of America (GOA) split off from the NRA 20-odd years ago because they thought the NRA wasn’t activist enough. \u00a0And they were right. \u00a0And the exodus of members concerned with gun rights spurred the NRA to more, more effective political activism.<\/p>\n

    But hard-line as they are, the GOA has actually had an effect on politics. \u00a0They’ve done <\/em>things; mobilized voters, won some battles <\/em><\/a>through their own lobbying and activism and shoe leather.<\/p>\n

    I’m not going to tell you what to think about “Minnesota Gun Rights”, the group we met last Tuesday<\/a> via its alarmed-sounding fund-raising letter<\/a> to Minnesota gun owners.<\/p>\n

    I am <\/em>going to tell you to consider the evidence;<\/p>\n