Tag Archives: RKBA

authoritarian swine, Courts, Culture, gun control, gun grabbers, guns, Law, Political philosophy, Politics, resistance, Rights, self defense, Voting

I stand on the shoulders of Giants

May 1, 2022 Sheila Stokes 16 Comments

The Second Amendment rights movement has suffered what I consider to be some grievous losses the last few years. We lost Brad Alpert in 2019 who’s Second Amendment activity went way back to 1966. We lost his beloved wife Jo Ann just a few weeks ago. She was a Southern Second Amendment powerhouse in her own right. They were some of the smartest people I ever met, and many a time a visit to see them would sooth my troubled heart, soul or both. Not to mention they were a great source of inspiration.

I’m not on FakeBook much at all anymore, but a quick check in showed me we lost a another stalwart on the 15^th of April.

And then last night I got a phone call from an old friend, going way back to 2004. January 22^nd of 2004 to be precise. I was a young(er) country gal who had traveled to the state capitol to attend a hearing for a court case against Missouri’s concealed carry law. I was going to write my first column for a grassroots Missouri Second Amendment rights group. I didn’t know anyone. I was going because I didn’t have to work that day, and I wanted to see it, and write about it. And it became what I consider to be a life shaping event. I met some amazing people that day, people I had only heard of in Second Amendment rights group meetings. People that had been instrumental in getting concealed carry passed in the state of Missouri. One of those people was John Ross, the author of Unintended Consequences. It is a big book, it combines history with his modern day story line and while I haven’t read it for a few years, in some ways I think it’s prophetic. As I recall it’s towards the beginning there is a part that takes place in the Warsaw ghetto. I was hooked. Part of it does have some pretty graphic scenes, just a warning up front. But it’s a once you read it, you’ll never forget it. I remember when it came out he, and his ex-wife were harassed by alphabet soup agencies, but the book still went on sale.

My phone call last night was from my friend Michael Meyer (who despite never getting me a Clydesdale, I still adore) telling me John had passed on. I didn’t even know he had been working on his next book. Who knows what that might have been like. Michael said everyone was in shock. I get it, I am as well. I told Michael it’s because we never expect our legends to die. I guess some people have been looking on the net for that original column I did, about meeting them all. So I’m sharing some pictures with you from that day, the lunch at Madison’s and Michael generously shared some really good pictures of John with me.

I was in the presence of Warrior Angels that day, I still aspire to become one, and to inspire others to become one as well. Because I stand on the shoulders of giants.

In the Presence of Warrior Angels

I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Missouri Supreme Court (MOSC) hearing on the 22nd of January. It was an amazing experience for us. We found out by attending the WMSA meeting the night before that we needed to be there around 10 AM, rather than the 2 PM we had planned on. There would be tickets given out to enter the hearing. So I got up bright and early so I could leave on time. If you have never had to wake up chickens to feed them, it is pretty funny.

After an uneventful journey, I arrived around 9:40 AM found a parking spot in a 2 hour parking meter lot and got all set. I knew what the building looked like from internet hunting. I had ever been to the MOSC. I went in and passed through the metal detectors. Seemed an unnecessary step to me, as there was a big sign on the door to the effect of no weapons beyond this point. All criminals will certainly obey that sign, so why both with the metal detector? Then the intrepid Marshal went through my purse, more or less. Now that is bravery! We all left our cell phones on a table along with everyone else’s. I was told we couldn’t take our camera upstairs, so I asked the Marshal if I could take a photo by the beautiful marble stairway. He said sure. I started to take the photo, and a very nice gentleman, who turned out to be John Gordon, came up and offered to take a photo. Then tongue in cheek (at least I think it was) he asked which side we were on. I told him, VERY pro. He smiled and said as long as I was on the right side and laughed. John took the photo. Afterwards we met Tom Mendenhall, both were from Columbia. There were another group of men standing around, mostly in suits, I wondered which side they were on. While we were waiting for the tickets to be given out I amused myself by trying to figure out which side folks were on according to how they dressed and acted. After a while a line formed, we asked Carl, the guard behind the desk, by this time we were on a first name basis with Carl, if we should get in line. He softly laughed and said he didn’t know why folks were forming the line, that the tickets would be given out in order of arrival, and the Marshal knew the order of the arrival. Shortly after 10 AM, out he came and proceeded to pass out tickets. As we walked outside Dennis told me he had traded tickets with the gentleman that was walking out with us, so he could sit with his friends. I asked if we were still sitting together, he said we were. The gentleman then introduced himself. Tim Oliver. I lunged across Dennis and yelped TIM OLIVER?? THE Tim Oliver? He laughed and said yes. He told us he had a table reserved at Madison’s for lunch, we should come. Now we are in a strange city, we don’t know anyone, and this nice man invites us to join his group. We asked if he was sure there would be enough room for us. He said sure. He told us where it was, so we set out to move our car and find the place. We found it. It turned out, it was across from the parking garage. We went in and began our meeting of Warrior Angels. It was the most amazing thing, we ended up having lunch with Tim Oliver, Greg Jeffery, Tom Mendenhall and John Gordon on one side of the table. On the other was Dennis, Mike Meyer, John Ross (Author of Unintended Consequences, which if you haven’t read it, wow, you should!) and C. Michael Gamble. These are men who have labored long and hard in the fight for our Second Amendment Rights. They are intelligent, informed and generous of nature. They allowed two folks from the country who were pretty much alone in the city to be a part of their group and within 5 minutes we felt at home, we were among our own kind. Then it was back to the MOSC. We were front row center, I sat next to John Gordon, who secured press packets for us. When the lawyers filed in, Tim, who sat on the other side of Dennis, told us who the players were. Bert Newman opened for the bad guys (no bias in reporting here folks!). His argument hinged on the statement in the Missouri constitution that Article 1 section 23 which stated “but this shall not justify the wearing of concealed weapons” meant that it couldn’t be done. One of the justices pointed out then it would apply to law officers, process servers and the like. Mr. Newman felt this applied only to citizens, not to law enforcement or the like which he said are “the state”. That law officers, process servers and the like have much more extensive training, regulation & requirements. There was a long discussion about rights under the first clause of Article 1 section 23, rights to promote personal security-guaranteed by the first clause, the right to defend their person or property. Mr. Newman feels that our law enforcement officials are promoting personal security by protecting the citizens of the state in a manner that is consistent with the first clause of Article 1 section 23. So as I understand that, Mr. Newman feels that our right to defend ourselves is taken care of by law enforcement officers. While I listen to this, I am remembering the part in Missouri Weapons and Self-Defense Law by K. Jamison, that the police do NOT have a duty to protect the individual, just society as a whole, and am thinking, oh, this isn’t good. Then came one of the most entertaining portions of the show. I believe it was Judge Benton, that ask Mr. Newman, so your definition of the word justify is sanction? What definition do you give us of the word justify? Faster than a speeding bullet, Mr. Newman whipped a pair of black patent tap shoes out of his briefcase and tied them on. He began to dance at a rapid speed. He started with the last phrase means accept, then went into the intent of the founders is so clear, looking back to the mischief to be remedied, spirit of the times, 1875 havoc, civil war…. The Justice re-asked the question of what justify meant, and where did he get the definition. With his feet furiously flying, Mr. Newman launched into another diatribe, included in his points, meaning of “does not justify” is a ban on concealed weapons, means can’t have. In the back of my head I am hearing this raspy voice saying “it depends on what your definition of the word is, is”…Finally after another Justice asked a time or two, Mr. Newman finally stated that the word justify meant “allow”. Mr. Newman then took off his tap shoes and Mr. Miller, the other bad guy (for simplicity in reporting) got up to present the Hancock portion of the argument. Judge Benton pointed out that the Sheriff may charge up to $100, or may not charge anything. That there may be a Sheriff that has said he will do it for free, as part of his running platform. Mr. Miller kept insisting that for judicial economy, that instead of having 114 counties come before the Supreme Court asking for relief from this unfunded mandate, it should just be ruled on now. One Justice pointed out that some counties have said they will not need any additional personnel, they already have the process in place for fingerprints, and basically, it won’t be any big deal. Obviously, this was not the Jackson County Sheriff. Mr. Miller’s point is that although the Sheriffs may charge up to $100, that the way the law is written prohibits the Sheriffs from using the money to pay for cost of processing the applications. Huh, where do these people get this stuff?

Then the mighty Paul Wilson from the Attorney General’s office (One of the good guys) came up to bat. Justice Wolf wanted to know if the money goes to the Sheriff’s fund for training, would the County be compensated for other expenses. Mr. Wilson replied that there was no way to know what other expenses there might be. He said that there is no way the legislature would draft the law, allow the Sheriffs to charge up to $100 and then say they could not use it to pay the expenses. One of the Justices asked “what if we struck the restriction to training and equipment? Then they could use the money as they see fit.” Mr. Wilson replied they could, or they could acknowledge the next section in the law which requires a sheriff to reimburse a local police chief any reasonable expenses meant that these categories were not to be exclusive to other expenses. He stated that the legislature had acted rationally in providing funds. When asked how could he say that in a county like St. Louis that it will not result in increase work load, Mr. Wilson replied they can’t, they have no way of knowing if 1 person, or 100,001 people will apply. He pointed out that the legislature will likely give a law against cross burning this year, and that will result in increased work for detectives. He asked if it was to be suggested that the law would violate the Hancock Amendment. He stated that is work they do, they capture criminals and bring them to the prosecutors. That these duties are part and parcel of what they do. Mr. Wilson stated that if a county doesn’t want to oblige someone who wants a concealed carry license, the county would raise the Hancock issue, they would have to prove, which they have not, that it is an unfunded mandate. That county would then need to come before the MOSC to be excused from complying. BUT if the court did choose to do that, it would not be preventing any other county from complying with the law.

Then it was back to Dancin’ Bert Newman for his final argument which is banning concealed carry promotes personal safety.

Mr. Miller’s final say was if they didn’t decide now on the Hancock issue (before there is any data to base a decision on mind you) that they would have to decide the issue 114 times. Just then a little Red chicken ran across the court room, something about the sky falling….I think. And with that the arguments closed.

What can I say, Mr. Brooks didn’t look too happy. It was the most amazing day, meeting these wonderful men, they truly are Warrior Angels, and to be present when history is being made!

A gathering of Warrior Angels at the Missouri Supreme Court

gun control, Politics

Interview with Senator Johnny Isakson, R-GA

January 31, 2019 Carl Bussjaeger 1 Comment

A couple of months ago, I received a form response (in reply to my email regarding reciprocal carry) from Senator Johnny “Crickets” Isakson, the new nickname earned through his silence when questioned about his actual RKBA positions. The Senator noted that he was a co-sponsor of that bill, which I already knew, but avoided saying what he might do to advance it.

But his form letter did tell me something else.

At that point, several Democrats had said that they would be filing bills to implement “universal background checks.” Since Isakson is on record supporting that, I decided a proper interview on the subject was in order. I sent his office a list of questions on January 3, 2019.

Receiving no response, not even an automated acknowledgement, I followed up on 1/9/2019. And again on 1/13/2019. Then on 1/15/2019. At long last, on 1/22/2019, I received a reply. I sent a request for clarification or expansion of his statement. No reply.

Let the interview begin.

1. How would you respond to those who say background checks, a requirement that a buyer preemptively prove his innocence, are a prior restraint on the exercise of a constitutionally protected right?

2. Research shows that approximately 93% of guns used in crimes are obtained through unlawful channels bypassing background checks (private sales between non-prohibited persons without background checks are not one of the unlawful channels). How will you shut down the unlawful transactions, thus forcing those people to turn to lawful channels and background checks?

3. At least 93% of NICS denials turn out to be false positives, and there is currently a backlog of tens of thousands of denial appeals. How will you fix the false positive problem, which can only increase the backlog as private sales are forced to turn to NICS?

4. There is an unknown, but large, false negative problem with NICS; prohibited persons listed in NICS still passing background checks. How will you fix that?

5. A 2017 study showed that “We cannot conclude that states that regulate private gun sales have a higher, or lower, gun homicide rate.” California, with universal background checks as part of the most comprehensive gun control laws in the country, saw an 18% increase in firearms homicides from 2014 to 2016. How would federally imposed universal background checks work better?

Other legislation has been entered or seems likely:

Graham has introduced an “Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO/”red flag”) bill would you support that? If so, why; and how would you respond to those who say that “preemptive” orders with after the fact “due process” are unconstitutional bills of attainder?

Do you support or oppose a ban on bump-fire stocks, and why? Do you consider the recent rule change making bump-fire stocks “machineguns” to be lawful?

Do you support or oppose national reciprocal carry, and why?

An answer! A form reply, but something.

Do you support or oppose removing suppressors/silencers from National Firearms Act regulation, and why?

Do you support or oppose raising the minimum purchasing for rifles and shotguns from 18yo, why?

Do you support or oppose a ban on any class of firearms, such as “assault weapons,” and why?

Is there any other firearms-related legislation you would support or oppose?

About all I can establish about Senator Crickets’ positions is that he’ll eventually sign on to reciprocal carry but not carry through (or it might have at least come to a floor vote last session), and that he wants ineffective, expensive prior restraint of rights through preemptively-prove-your-innocence background checks whose only real purpose can be to assemble 4473’s to identify gun owners and their firearms.

Sadly, Georgia and the nation are stuck with him until the 2022 elections.

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authoritarian swine, gun control, gun grabbers, Rights

Deprivation of Rights Is Suddenly a Bad Thing?

September 11, 2018 Carl Bussjaeger 3 Comments

Young Mister Hogg, speaking at the Toronto International Film Festival, made the astonishing — for him — assertion that people should not be deprived of human/civil rights because of a mere felony conviction.

I personally subscribe to the notion that anyone who can’t be trusted with a firearm should not be on the street without a keeper. If they’re safe to be on the loose, they’re safe to exercise constitutionally protected rights. Whether that’s voting or bearingdefensive arms.

I’m pleased to see that Hogg agr… oh. Wait.

We’ll leave aside for the moment the fact that the befuddled boy has no idea of how our constitutional representative republic works, and that no president has the lawful power to do that. And if he did rule by edict, Hogg would probably call him a dictator; “Hitler” even.

Hogg is outraged that those convicted of felonies lose rights. But stripping Second Amendment rights from people never convicted of any crime is a good thing?

This is the punk who wants the voting age lowered to 16 so they can vote to raise the age to exercise the right to keep and bear arms.

Eighteen year-olds are too immature to safely operate a simple device with three or four controls, but sixteen year-olds can operate massive motor vehicles with a plethora of controls to manipulate?

If they cannot master arms, then they certainly can’t be trusted with the far more complex instruments of democracy.

Ed. note: This commentary appeared first in TZP’s weekly email alert. If you would like to be among the first to see new commentary (as well as to get notice of new polls and recaps of recent posts), please sign up for our alert list. (See sidebar or, if you’re on a mobile device, scroll down). Be sure to respond when you receive your activation email!

authoritarian swine, gun control, Schools and campuses

Broward County grabs shovel, digs deeper

April 24, 2018 Carl Bussjaeger 4 Comments

The Broward County Sheriff’s office and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School seem determined to cost taxpayers millions in legal settlements.

I found this report today:

This is only one side of the story. As yet, I haven’t seen responses from the school or sheriff.

On the one hand, the authorities might well say that they are acting in a new abundance of caution in the aftermath of their previous massive collection of failures. That could even be reasonable.

They’ll still have to explain in court why a person who assaulted people and damaged property at school, who put guns to people’s heads and threatened to kill them, who vandalized property, who killed animals maliciously, who credibly threatened to shoot up his school — et cetera and so forth — warranted less of an investigation than a pro-rights kid who appears on national TV, meets with Senators, goes to the White House, and has never threatened anyone.

Working with Kashuv’s account, we have a kid who posted nonthreatening accounts of learning shoot with his father and an instructor, with pro-Second Amendment statements (i.e.- political speech outside of school). His principal tells him some students didn’t like his posts, but that he hadn’t done anything wrong.

Apparently Kashuv was considered so nonthreatening that he continued on to multiple classes without incident.

Until after noon, when he was sent to see “Mr. Greenleaf.”

Aside: Kashuv refers to Greenleaf a an “armed school resource officer.” Earlier reports identify a “Kevin Greenleaf” as a “civilian security monitor” and a “security specialist at the high school”. If he is a civilian and armed on school property, isn’t that a violation of Florida Statute 790.06? If he is a law enforcement officer — a sheriff’s school resource officer — why do multiple reports refer to him otherwise?

Kashuv says he met Greenleaf who, rather than speaking to him informally where they met, specifically took him to an office, where they were joined by a “second security officer walked in and sat behind me.”

If I was surrounded by armed people, I’d consider myself to be in custody. Oh, wait; I did consider myself in custody. And that wasn’t even in a private office.

“Third officer” reinforces the concept of custody. And it raises the question of whether a civilian “security monitor” or “security specialist” presented himself as a law enforcement officer. I would very much like to see Greenleaf’s status clarified.

I’ve mentioned “custody” a few times for a good reason. A person in custody must be read his Miranda rights and allowed to stop talking without legal representation. A minor has additional protections because the courts assume that a minor can reasonably believe he is in custody under conditions that would not necessarily apply to an adult.

Kyle Kashuv was sixteen at the time of the shooting, and is still a legal minor. He was taken to a private office, apparently by an armed person, and questioned there by two, and then three, armed people whom Kashuv identified as “officers.” I am not a lawyer, but that sounds a lot like a situation in which he would believe himself to be in “custody.”

So Kashuv’s account raises questions that need answering by the school and sheriff’s office:

If the questioners said Kashuv had done nothing wrong, was this harassment purely for his out-of-school free political speech in support of Second Amendment rights?
Is Greenleaf a civilian unlawfully armed in a school?
If Greenleaf is a civilian, is he presenting himself in a way that would cause a reasonable person — especially a minor — to believe he is a law enforcement officer; that is, impersonating an officer?
Was Kashuv in custody and questioned without Miranda rights to parental or legal representation?

If Greenleaf is an armed civilian in the school, I expect we’ll see the school throw him under the bus. “Oh, we didn’t know he was carrying a gun in school. We’ll fire him immediately.” To cover their own asses, the sheriff’s office may have to arrest him.

I’m looking forward to statements from the BCoward Sheriff’s Office and the school.

Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could use the money, what with truck repairs and bills.

Action, gun control, Media, Politics

Coverage, or it didn’t happen

April 17, 2018 Carl Bussjaeger 3 Comments

RKBA supporters are well past the point of “pics, or it didn’t happen.”

As Sheila noted, Saturday, April 14th was was planned for pro-human/civil rights rallies across the country, with an emphasis on state capitols.

Now, I’m in favor of such actions myself. But I proposed a rather later date with much better coordination. For a reason.

2A/RKBA supporters have effectively lost every major media battle for the past twenty years (at least). The media is actively against the right to keep and bear arms, so we need to present them with a situation so well planned and executed that they cannot ignore it.

They may probably will lie, but they wouldn’t ignore it.

So how did the media battle of coverage of Saturday’s rallies go?

CNN: Zip
ABC: Nada
CBS: “Hey, let’s implement Universal Basic Income!”
NBC: “Look! Syria!”
MSNBC: “Russians! And you’re racist if you disagree.”

Seriously. If there’s coverage of the rallies on those sites, it’s buried enough that I didn’t find it.

But not all is lost! I scrolled down at Faux Snooze and found this:

Hundreds. Total. Across the country. Thanks, Faux.

Local coverage was a little bit better. The news was forced to admit that at least 800 people turned out in Augusta, ME alone.

But unless, like me, you’re specifically looking for news of something you already know about, you weren’t going to see that. Otherwise…

A handful of locals heard that another handful of locals turned out for something, but it was probably an isolated band of loonies.

Congratulations, NCCPA. You just staged a nonexistent protest.

I’ve given advice on how to do this. Let me elaborate.

We don’t have billionaires funding us. I wish we did, because I could use some cash to get my truck working well enough to drive to the capitol. We don’t have corporate sponsors who will donate multiple planes to airlift people to protests. We don’t have government school diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars to rent buses and buy food for protesters.

Turn-Out: To get coverage, we need a turn-out that can’t be ignored. Thousands at one high profile location, and smaller protests across the country. Sound familiar? The anti-rights people did that for a reason.

Attention: People have to know about it in advance. Both protesters who have to get there, and the folks we want to hear our views, so they know to pay attention when it happens.

Both of those require time and money.

Time: Time to plan, time to arrive, time to inform a less-than-receptive media, time raise money.

Money: Money for advertising, money for outreach, money for transportation (unless you’re donating a 747) — buses, air travel, parking space — money for frickin’ bottled water for attendees. Money for trash pickup post-protest so we present a better image than the littering left.

Since we have a shortage of rich, generous folks with an interest in human/civil rights, I suggest crowd-funding. Set up a spreadsheet and crunch rally logistics numbers: permits, fees, transportation, rations, PR, and so forth. When you got a number, set up a crowd-funding account with the declared goal. This will take time (see above). Do this well in advance of the rally date.

If it has escaped your notice, that’s a lot of planning, fund-raising, and media coordination (among other things). You need people who can spend all their time on it. Volunteers to help are fantastic, but you need some full-time pros. That’s why the Marx for Your Lives folks had a formal non-profit set up for coordination. There’s only so much volunteer amateurs can do in their spare time away from the jobs that will — in the end — pay for all this.

So budget for experienced coordinators, too.

Public Relations: People to talk to the media; not just prior to the big show, but at the protest. Designated spokesmen scattered across the perimeter to home in on reporters and give a sane summary of our positions, complete with rehearsed sound bites.

PR also means keeping the crazies away from the media. There will be crazies. Every movement has some. Plan for it. Designated spokesmen team with a designated “Lunatic Interception Agent.” When the off-his-meds guy from the Mom’s Basement Brigade with 4 guns, two machetes, swastikas, and homemade body armor 3 sizes too small approaches a reporter, the LIA stops him: “That’s our TACTICAL Public Relations Operator, bro. She’s a trained operator; let her handle it.”

And let’s be realistic. We’ll be dealing with media types who value form over substance; it won’t hurt to use… photogenic spokesmen. Male and female, to target receptive reporters of whichever gender.

“There will be crazies.” I could write a column just on that. Even in the SCA, a hotbed of insanity, we did dealt with this. I spoke to a lot of reporters because I could be trusted to explain that we weren’t crazy, that it was a “learn-by-doing” history thing. I had memorized talking points. And meanwhile, someone else would be distracting the mostly naked, wanna-be Pict who’d spotted the pretty reporter and wanted to hit on her why bragging on what a greater fighter he is because he hurts people.

And no offense to the crystal power folks, who were mostly harmless, but we tried to keep them away from most reporters, too. Nice enough, but easily distracted by shiny things from what they should have been explaining.

We have a coordinated enemy. It’s time we act in a coordinated fashion to protect our constitutional human/civil rights, as well.

Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could use the money, what with truck repairs and bills.

gun control, Politics, resistance, spirit of rebellion, Voting

Tactics

March 26, 2018 Carl Bussjaeger 1 Comment

A recent comment on my post Bumping Off the Truth about the lies behind bump-fire bans.

I don’t know. As I’ve mentioned before, countering the media gatekeepers is expensive, and a long term solution. I have ideas, but not the resources to implement them.

Some things that might work in the shorter term, but which I still lack the money or charisma to pull off:

Mass Protests: a la Marx for Your Lives.
A nonprofit reserved time in DC for a protest. Giffords’ group arranged transportation to ship in dupes.

Let’s see the NRA put up or shut up; their big chance to redeem themselves. The NRA — the financial gorilla supposedly in the pro-RKBA arena — could do the same thing. Schedule it now. July or August. Reserve buses to do pickups across the country. Set up a web site for folks to coordinate crash space.

The tough part is that, unlike the unemployed and student masses which the left uses, activist gun owners tend to be in the productive class, which means they have to be at their jobs being productive. But if they have a few months to schedule things, a lot could arrange the day(s) off for travel to a weekend event. Plus — just as the Marxists did — local/regional gatherings for those who can’t make the DC trek.

Strike: Hey, we tend to be the productive class. Remember the “strike” for illegal immigrants? Coordinate one single day for a mass outbreak of… red,white, and blue-flu. “Sorry; I can’t make it in today. I’m terribly sick of my rights being violated, and facing false murder accusations.” Or lock the shop door, and hang a “Gone target shooting. Back when my rights are too.” sign.

Call it a “Bill of Rights Strike.”

Letter campaigns: You know how GOA gets everyone to sign those form emails to congresscritters? Is there any reason the addressing can’t handle hundreds of news service editors’ desks? All at once? How ’bout it GOA?

Better yet, for once I’d prefer snailmail post cards. Coordinated to be mailed all on the same day. Make a downloadable template for folks to print and address to local papers, and radio and television stations.

Print a stack and mail them — again, all on a single day — to every Representative, Senator, and state legislators. Local politicians, too. Don’t forget the White House either. Send them to newspapers and broadcasters.

If 7% (a rough figure for how many out of any group typically does something) of gun owners did that, the human/civil rights violators would be flooded with piles of post cards and emails from at least 3,850,000 people. If each person sent 14 post cards (and 14 emails) — to his congressman, Senators, state reps, state senator, governor, state attorney general, US AG, CNN, ABC, CBS, Fox, MSNBC, and a local paper — that’s 53 million snailmail cards (and 53 million emails). Ambitious types with more cash on hand could send these to every congressman and Senator.

Go all out; send them to the Brady Campaign (or whatever their name is today), Everytown, Moms Demand Blood, MAIG, the NRA, and any other pro-gun control group you can think of.

Millions of post cards and emails. All at once. Preferably the same day as the BOR Strike.

They’ll try to hide it, and lie about it. But the next time they run another fake survey/poll purporting to show how much we love gun control, they’ll know in their black flabby hearts that we know.

And are watching them.

Pranking: Print a bunch of 8.5×11 signs, tape them to cardboard backing, and staple them to stakes.

Go out one night and stick them in random yards. Or maybe not so random.

Variations: Take a picture of the gun-free zone signs at the mall, and photoshop it: “designated helpless victim zone”. Print, a little double-sided tape, and voila!

But I hope no one spells out “2A 4EVER!” in some anti-gun HOA yard nazi’s nice bermuda grass lawn… with fast (and high) growing rye grass seed. (Broward County residents definitely should not spell “COWARD” in Sheriff Israel’s lawn.)

And when the lying bastards pass the gun control laws, there’s always malicious compliance. Just think of how many individual “large-capacity ammunition cartridges you could file separate paperwork on.

Elections: In case you hadn’t noticed, the Republicans have broken every promise on gun rights (and several more). There’s really no point in voting Republican just to keep those nasty anti-RKBA Democrats out; they’re effectively two branches of the one big Boot On Your Neck Party. As someone said, more or less, no matter who you vote for, Washington wins.

So make your November (or earlier primaries) vote count in a different way.

Write in “John Moses Browning.”

On the bright side, if the Republicans get tossed out, we’ll only have to watch out for the Democrats’ next infringement(s), without sneaking glances over our shoulders to see if the Republicans are about to stick another knife in our backs. Again.

Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could seriously use the money, what with truck repairs and bills. If he gets enough, he could even implement some of these ideas.

"News Media", gun control, Media, The Zelman Partisans

Losing the War?

March 19, 2018 Carl Bussjaeger 1 Comment

I read a lot of RKBA news. Seriously: A lot. (And that matters, as you’ll see.)

One theme that started popping up last week is the idea that RKBA advocates are somehow losing the culture war.

If you read the national news (or watch television, or get your news from mainstream web sites), that’s an easy conclusion to reach. So long as you don’t look too closely.

As I said, I read a lot of news. I must, to put together the weekly TZP news summary. Besides my casual browsing, I use several pre-built news searches on a variety of terms. The terms were selected to produce headlines from various points of view.

Probably 90% of the actual results reflect only one point of view; that RKBA is losing. You see it in “news” reports and Letters to the Editor (LtE) alike. You see it in polls and surveys.

And it’s BS.

Not to defend the NRA, but did you see the “news” story “Lawyer who worked for NRA said to have had concerns about group’s Russia ties”? So the NRA’s lawyer is worried about collusion?

Nope: Mitchell told McClatchy in an email that any suggestion she has concerns about the NRA’s Russia connections is a “complete fabrication.” But to learn that, you have to get past the false headline and two paragraphs of innuendo.

Or this oldie-butgoodie bullshit: “The NRA has blocked gun violence research for 20 years. Let’s end its stranglehold on science.” Absolutely factually wrong headline. Folks who routinely rely on the LA Times to inform them will have no basis to understand that the CDC was stopped from advocating and promoting gun control, and the funding they “lost” was the money they’d diverted from research, thus proving they didn’t need it. But try writing an LtE to correct that lie.

I’ve been writing LtEs on firearms-related topics for decades. Offhand, I can only recall two being published. One was a recent letter to the Texas Wilson County News in which I congratulated the publisher for getting facts right.

I have to go back to the mid-1990s for the only other published LtE: It ran in the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch. I opened to the Op/Ed page and found they’d run two letters side by side, to reflect “both sides” of the discussion. The pro-RKBA letter was… sad. An embarrassment to RKBA. Poor grammar, unfortunate word choices, incorrect statistics. You name it, that guy got it wrong, and I was pissed because I’d sent a letter covering everything that clown had, but I got it right. But I kept reading.

And found that crappy excuse for a pro-RKBA letter over my own name. They edited it to make pro-Second Amendment types look like idiots. They edited it so heavily — changing even facts — that I couldn’t recognize it as my own. I had to dig out my personal file copy and match paragraph to published paragraph to see that they’d followed my sequence. Sort of.

I protested. Nothing.

I threatened. Nothing.

I recently wrote another LtE to a local paper, objecting to falsehoods in another letter. They refused to publish it. The publisher claimed she could “correct” the falsehoods by printing a “correction” elsewhere.

She didn’t.

We are not losing the war. Yet. But we have lost the media battle. The editorial gatekeepers will not let our truly representative views be seen.

Polls/surveys? Same thing. Gallup claims “Americans Widely Support Tighter Regulations on Gun Sales”. To hear them tell it, 96% of Americans want universal background checks; 95% of gun owners. 75% of all Americans want a 30 day waiting period on all firearms purchases.

You couldn’t get 96% of all Americans to decide on vanilla ice cream over frozen feces, if only because of the jokers answering the phones. Certainly no state has ever come within 30 points of that figure in real elections or referendums.

So how do they get those numbers? Sometimes it’s through careful question selection, but that’s a crude technique, mostly abused by outright push-polls. The pro’s trick is weighting. That’s where you expect a bias in answers due to statistical clumping in the random selection of respondents, so you adjust the numbers to compensate. Real statisticians will do that for specific reasons.

(And what happens with “unscientific” Internet surveys; the ones where respondents aren’t carefully selected and “weighted”? Pretty much the exact opposite. The truth is somewhere in between.)

But if a pollster finds he’s getting too many pro-RKBA answers, out of proportion to the blue-city urban responses, and has to adjust…

Adjusting is exactly the wrong response. That’s deciding what the “right” result is before starting and faking the results to match preconceptions. If your “random” respondent selection was properly random, then the respondents should average out to represent — proportional to population — America. No need to “weight.” And to be sure, you randomly select another pool of respondents and run a second survey with exactly the same questions. Think of it as reproducing experimental results in real science.

Instead, we get nonsensical, proven-wrong (UNH survey in NH claimed 94% of residents wanted universal PPYI; when the Dems tried, they were voted out by large margins) 96% percent propaganda. (And kudos to the Crime Prevention Research Center for trying to conducted accurate surveys and analysis; statistics is inherently imprecise, so errors occur, but they try.)

The media gatekeepers have won the battle to inform the uninformed. They will not allow a proper defense of human/civil rights, an understanding of existing laws, or what already failed. The faked surveys become believable because, “Well, I never see anyone saying different in the news.” Convenient, that.

We have sites like this, and other bloggers and dedicated firearms sites rarely seen by those who don’t already share our interest. A few allies at services like Breitbart. Inconsistent, occasional support from Fox. The occasional local paper with severely limited circulation. If anyone can even find them, what with Google censoring bad-think search results, even shopping searches.

Social media? Are you still on anti-gun Facebook?

Big media has control. By blocking almost all positive discussion of firearms-related human/civil rights, they make appear there are none. Honest gun owners can be demonized, making it that much more likely that the deliberately ill-informed will support that much more erosion of rights. After all, only handful of radicals want those rights… they’re told, unaware of what they aren’t told.

At best, my writing here at The Zelman Partisans is preaching to the choir. More like shouting into an echo chamber.

Or a void.

Frankly, I’ve stared too long into the abyss. It’s a staredown.

But the choir doesn’t want me to say it’s hopeless. You want answers. Preferably quick, easy answers.

Sorry to disappoint.

Short of brainwashing Soros et al into channeling mass quantities of money into fact-based, unbiased, professional — as opposed to the current crop of “journalists” who decry their innocence in false reporting by exclaiming, “But it’s my job to report what [insert authority figure] said. It isn’t my place to question them.” — reporting, and the advertising necessary to make people aware of the news source, the media battle will lead to the culture loss already being decried.

The NRA can’t do it. They’re already the designated demon to the ignorant, and traitors to informed gun owners.

I can’t do it. I’m struggling to pay bills, without running up expenses chasing down leads or paying for honest surveys, or building a high traffic web site to pass that info along. Education like this is part of what The Zelman Partisans was created to do, but still lacks the resources to reach far enough.

Gun Owners of America can’t do it. They’re already reaching as far as they can, while pushing pro-rights legislation and law suits.

55,000,000 to 120,000,000 gun owners, and we can’t cough up a buck a piece per year to create a loud enough voice of truth. Hell, I’d settle for enough to buy an editor or two in major markets, the way the victim disarmament side has done.

Carl is an unpaid TZP volunteer. If you found this post useful, please consider dropping something in his tip jar. He could seriously use the money, what with truck repairs and bills.

Politics, Poll, Uncategorized

Poll: Rate Trump’s first 100 days of RKBA

April 30, 2017 Carl Bussjaeger 7 Comments

When Donald Trump first started campaigning for President, many people were dubious of his new-found commitment to the right to keep and bear arms given his history on the subject: gun bans, preemptively prove your innocence, waiting periods, and more.

But once he hit the campaign trail he started talking a good game. The question was, could he walk as well as talk?

One hundred days in, he’s still talking, but he has also done some good things like ending the Social Security abuse. On the other hand, Obamacare 2.0 attempts still have RKBA problems, federal gun-free zone requirements are still there, and his Second Amendment advisory group is vaporware.

Since everyone else is rating Trump’s first 100 days in office, how would you rate him on RKBA?

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