{"id":44742,"date":"2014-06-10T07:20:05","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T12:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=44742"},"modified":"2014-06-10T11:55:53","modified_gmt":"2014-06-10T16:55:53","slug":"open-letter-to-target-corp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=44742","title":{"rendered":"Open Letter To Target Corp"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>June 9, 2014<\/p>\n<p>To: Target Corporation<br \/>\nFrom: Mitch Berg, Law-abiding Customer<br \/>\nRe:\u00a0 Billionaire Trouble<\/p>\n<p>Dear Target,<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been a customer of yours for decades, like most Minnesotans.\u00a0 I estimate I likely spend well north of $2,000 a year at your stores, counting groceries and clothing.<\/p>\n<p>And like about 180,000 Minnesotans, I have a permit to carry a firearm.<\/p>\n<p>Minnesotans with carry permits are nearly three orders of magnitude less likely to commit a firearm crime than the general public; we are literally better safety risks, per capita, than your employees are.<\/p>\n<p>Now, a group called &#8220;Moms Demand Action&#8221;, which is an astroturf pressure group owned and operated by billionaire ex-mayor Michael Bloomberg, is putting a lot of media pressure on Target to bar <em>all <\/em>firearm carry at your stores, nationwide, after the intemperate actions of a few &#8220;open carry&#8221; activists in Texas.<\/p>\n<p>While your stores are indeed your property, please be advised that if you bar <em>all <\/em>firearms &#8211; including tactfully-concealed weapons that many of us carry for our and our fellow citizens&#8217; protection, I will&#8230;:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Take my money elsewhere, and keep it there<\/li>\n<li>Do my best, via this blog and my talk show, to make sure everyone I can\u00a0 possibly influence does the same.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are twenty times as many carry permittees in Minnesota alone as there are members of all &#8220;gun safety&#8221; groups.\u00a0 And while we respect your property rights, given a choice, we will protect our rights first.<\/p>\n<p>It <em>is <\/em>that important to us.<\/p>\n<p>Yours,<\/p>\n<p>Mitch Berg<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p>I urge you to send a <em>polite <\/em>email, or phone call, to Target.<\/p>\n<p><em>In your own words<\/em>, tell Target that<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Michael Bloomberg&#8217;s money &#8211; not a bunch of plucky moms &#8211; is behind this astroturf effort.<\/li>\n<li>The &#8220;Moms&#8221; group &#8212; actually Michael Bloomberg&#8217;s billions &#8212; is trying to rope Target into their extreme agenda<\/li>\n<li>Permit holders are overwhelmingly more law abiding than the general population<\/li>\n<li>I am a law-abiding gun owner\/carry permit holder<\/li>\n<li>I am a frequent Target shopper<\/li>\n<li>I spend my money where my rights are respected<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Contact Target as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Email<\/strong>:\u00a0 Guest.Relations@Target.com<\/li>\n<li><strong>Phone<\/strong>:\u00a0 1-800-440-0680<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Remember &#8211; calm and polite wins the day.\u00a0 We win battles by being smarter than the Orcs.\u00a0 This can be no exception.\u00a0 We <em>are <\/em>held to a higher standard than they are &#8211; and we almost always hit that standard.<\/p>\n<p>We can change Target&#8217;s mind, the same way we humiliated Michael Bloomberg in the past two legislatures; by being better, smarter, and much more dedicated than they are.<\/p>\n<p>This post will remain stuck to the top of this blog until late Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>June 9, 2014 To: Target Corporation From: Mitch Berg, Law-abiding Customer Re:\u00a0 Billionaire Trouble Dear Target, I&#8217;ve been a customer of yours for decades, like most Minnesotans.\u00a0 I estimate I likely spend well north of $2,000 a year at your stores, counting groceries and clothing. And like about 180,000 Minnesotans, I have a permit to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gun-free-zones","category-victim-disarmament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44742"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44768,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44742\/revisions\/44768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}