Massad Ayoob's Blog, page 116

GRPC, DAY TWO

From 9 AM to well after 1 PM, we got useful information from the front lines. Discussing media relations, Tom Gresham and Malia Zimmerman noted among other things that ranting against liberals is counterproductive, because in their collective experience they’ve found that as many as 30% of liberals are pro-gun, and it’s never wise to insult potential allies.  There was a three-man panel on dealing with anti-gun media bias. Herb Stupp advised appealing to reporters’ and editors’ sense of fairness: “I appreciate your interest in this issue. Have you considered how many lives are saved by guns?”  Herb noted that big city papers often have an ombudsman who handles complaints about press bias.  “Speak to the editor if you can’t get through to the reporter,” he advised, “and look for columnists who are friendly or open-minded to the issue.”

Don Irvine from Accuracy In Media (AIM) noted that of 216 stories on gun policy analyzed in the first thirty days after Sandy Hook, eight out of nine favored “gun control.” CBS was the worst with a 22:1 ratio.  “Make judicious use of Twitter and Facebook” was his advice. “This is how today’s journalists get their news,” he said.

Charles Heller of Liberty Watch Radio, who does three talk shows in Arizona, advises gun rights advocates to make themselves information resources to journalists.  Tell them, “We will get you information,” and follow through with solidly researched material.

Tim Schmidt of the US Concealed Carry Association came out strongly for permitless carry. He spoke of having to kiss the ring of the king for an inalienable right, and saw permits as “goofy little concealed carry cards.”

John Fund of National Review celebrated the recently announced resignation of Eric Holder. His take: Democrats are taking the popularity polls and voting predictions, and wanted a new AG in place before a Republican-controlled Senate would have to approve his replacement. Fund noted that one out of ten House Democrats voted to find Holder in contempt of Congress.  With document production now having been compelled by the Court in the Fast and Furious matter, he sees the Holder departure as “getting out of town ahead of the sheriff.”  Fund contends that Eric Holder is/was the worst Attorney General in US history.  When it is pointed out that Nixon’s AG, John Mitchell, went to prison, Fund counters that Mitchell was sentenced there for things he did as Nixon’s campaign manager, not anything he did as Attorney General.

After the conference, on his Gun Talk radio show, Tom Gresham gave the best answer as to why this conference was held in anti-gun Chicago.  Alan Gottlieb’s Second Amendment Foundation funded the lawsuits that won concealed carry for Illinois, and handgun ownership rights for Chicagoans.  Gresham explained simply, “It was a victory lap.”

Next year’s Gun Rights Policy Conference, the thirtieth, will take place the last full weekend of September 2015 in super-gun-friendly Phoenix.  Attendance is no charge and you can pack your pistol without need for a permit.  Hope to see you there.

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GRPC

A contractor at the air traffic control center serving Chicago started a fire there and then attempted suicide, shutting down air traffic at both O’Hare and Midway.  Thousands of incoming/outgoing flights were disrupted, with the effects rippling outward from this key airline hub.

Thus, as you might imagine, actual turnout at the Gun Rights Policy Conference was well down from the 731 who were pre-registered, but the “show did go on.”  Today, Sunday, Tom Gresham will be broadcasting his GunTalk radio show live from the conference and continuing thereafter with interviews with participants.  The regular GRPC speech schedule will run 9 AM to 1:00 PM, after which they’ll hold an ad hoc grassroots workshop through the rest of the afternoon.

This was a big focus of Saturday’s presentation, with several of the state-level gun owners’ civil rights organization leaders sharing the advances and setbacks “on the ground.”  Any such effort can be “two steps forward, one step back,” but we are winning here: it seems to this observer that the state-level activists are getting way more than two steps forward for every one step back, with significant victories being scored even in battleground states such as California, Connecticut, New York, and Maryland.

Julianne Versnel and others involved at the International level briefed us on the dangers of certain treaties currently ongoing. On the national front, we were briefed by superstar Second Amendment lawyer Alan Gura on several cases both won and ongoing which can ultimately impact all law-abiding gun owners.  Professor John Lott detailed the misinformation coming out of the Bloomberg organization, fifty million dollars worth of twisted propaganda disguised as fact, which goes far beyond their notoriously listing a dead terrorist shot by police as “a victim of gun violence.”  Microstamping, smart guns, universal background checks that would lead to de facto registration, and other Trojan Horses were dissected.  The dangers of “gun-free zones” were delineated.

Stephen Halbrook ran out of copies of his new book (though I ordered a copy). His talk focused on the research for that book, “Gun Control in the Third Reich.” This authoritative resource will make a great companion text to the work of the late Aaron Zelman at Jews for Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO).

Speaking of which, the taking over of JPFO by Second Amendment Foundation, which along with Citizens’ Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms hosts the GRPC, was announced to strong applause.  A new board for JPFO has been constituted, and plans are in place to make that organization stronger than ever. More on this shortly in a future blog entry.

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THE SMELL OF JUSTICE IS IN THE AIR

I heard that the prosecutor’s office in New Jersey, after some gentle guidance from the NJ State Attorney General’s Office, has decided to put Shaneen Allen into a diversion program instead of taking her to a political show trial.  It’s good to see common sense prevail.  Congratulations to attorney Evan Nappen, who guided her through it, and to all those of you who supported this young woman who didn’t realize she was committing a victimless crime.

And, Eric Holder announced today, he is retiring as Attorney General of the United States.

Somewhere behind her blindfold, Lady Justice must be smiling.

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ANOTHER “LOOK AT BOTH SIDES”

This coming weekend, the annual Gun Rights Policy Conference will take place, bringing together the best and the brightest in the gun owners civil rights movement.  We’ll be getting the inside dope from the most important current battles and court cases, from the people who are making them happen.  Added bonus: Sunday afternoon will be a long “grassroots advocacy” workshop, with tips from the various state activists on what they’ve found to be the most successful approaches and strategies for working with state as well as national legislators.

I’ve mentioned this no-charge-to-attend conference before in this blog.  A couple of very good points have come up from folks who are reluctant to attend…because it’s in Chicago.

One of those points was, “Why Chicago, one of the most anti-gun cities in America? I don’t want to spend my dollars there!”  The answer is, first, it’s for the same reason both Chicago and San Francisco have been the host cities for successful GRPCs in recent years: it’s a symbolic gesture to hold the conference defiantly “behind enemy lines.”  And, second, this time around in Chicago it’s a celebration of triumph. Second Amendment Foundation, one of the hosts along with Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, was instrumental in the tremendous US Supreme Court victory in McDonald, et. al. v. City of Chicago, and in winning concealed carry in the State of Illinois.  A thumbing of the nose at the anti-gunners? Yeah, you could say that…

The other point was, “To heck with going to Chicago for that! I’m an armed citizen, I don’t live in Illinois, they’re not issuing non-resident carry permits to out-of-staters there yet, and just on principle I won’t go anyplace that doesn’t trust me to carry.”

Ya know what?  I totally sympathize with that, and if that’s why you’re not attending, I don’t blame you one damn bit.  When I was a little boy, my mother told me “Son, do not go places where you are not wanted.”  That turned out to be very good advice. I only go against that advice if I think going to the place that told me I’m not wanted, will do more good than not going.

In recent years, the GRPC speeches and panel discussions have been archived so those who could not attend can download them and review them later.  I have no reason to doubt that this will be the case for 2014 as well.

As soon as I find out where you can find those archives and listen to them at your leisure, I’ll post them here.

Stay tuned…

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PIRACY HAS PERILS AND PRICES

So, last Friday, the Evil Princess says to me from her workspace across the room from mine, “Today is ‘Talk Like A Pirate Day.’”

“Arrr,” I replied, “then gimme some booty, wench!”

Turns out that was the wrong thing to say, ‘cause I pretty much got keelhauled.

Be careful with this “Talk Like (Whatever) Day” business, fellas.  As far as I know, we’re out of the line of that fire until next April, when “Talk Like Shakespeare Day” comes around.

Forsooth…the winter of our discontent may show up on April 23.

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RELAXING AT THE RANGE

Last week, the significant other and I spent a great week in Utah’s beautiful Wasatch Mountains, teaching a MAG-40 class. We finished the week on Sunday at the Glock Shooting Sports Foundation (GSSF) match at the Kay Lee range in Salt Lake City.  Several of the teaching staff and the students came with us.

I was reminded that shooting is a relaxing sport. It was the closest to a vacation day that I’d had in a long time.  Met a lot of old friends there, and was able to introduce the attending students to one of the great figures in self-defense and officer survival training, Dennis Tueller.

As is usual at GSSF matches, both the Glock headquarters staff and the range officers there with boots on the ground were friendly, welcoming, and nurturing to new shooters and old heads alike.  I was very proud of how well my students did there, particularly my young protégé Tommy Nelson, who according to the preliminary scores won the Civilian class with stock guns shooting his Glock 17 9mm ( http://www.gssfonline.com/results/2014/2014sut.pdf ).  His lovely wife Danica (one of my graduates, I’m proud to say) came in third in the Glock Girls event, shooting in competition for her first time ever.  Tommy kicked my butt in at least a couple of the events there, and there’s no better compliment a student can pay to his instructor than to beat him in the discipline being taught.

One of my recent grads brought his young son Josh with him, the first match for both. Dad and son shot the father’s compact Glock 23 carry pistol with full power .40  S &W ammo…and each of them cleaned every steel plate rack with none left standing. Josh, you made us all proud.

My significant other, the Evil Princess, took high woman in her age class in Civilian, and second overall in the Glock Girls event, and beat most of the men with the subcompact .45s in Major Sub.  Me? The old guy here was a bit TOO relaxed and shot his worst Glock match of the year, but was able to salvage a couple of second places behind Bryan Dover, the current man to beat nationwide at this game, for which I was grateful.

We brought four Glock pistols to the tournament. She shot all her 9mm events with our Glock 17 RTF2 with Dawson adjustable rear/fiber optic front sights, and I shot all of mine with her Baby Glock G26 subcompact with AmeriGlo sights.  We both shot the Major Sub event with one of my stock Glock 30 sub-compact pistols with Trijicon night sights and 230 grain .45 hardball, and the Pocket Glock event with an out-of-the-box G42 Glock .380.

One of our companions noticed that Gail carried the 17 and the 42 to the firing line in a pistol box, while I came to the line with the G26 in a Mitch Rosen scabbard on my left hip, and the G30 in a Galco inside the waistband holster on my right.  He asked why.

I explained:

“Foxes carry Glockses in boxes,

“But oldsters use holsters.”

Dunno if it’s a Mars and Venus thing, but it was the best explanation I could deliver on short notice.

 

Civilian champ Tommy Nelson runs the camera and coaches wife Danica to a third-place finish. Note spent brass in the air as she fires Glock 17.

 

 

It was good to spend some catch-up time with old friend Dennis Tueller, right, whose officer survival research has saved many lives.

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WHOSE VITRIOL, WHOSE LIES?

A comment on this blog doesn’t usually turn into a blog entry, but it happens. Kinda like, as follows.

Someone who goes by “s” posted this as a comment to the last blog entry here:

Once again, Ayoob lies and creates evidence from thin air when it suits him. In his pathetic apology for the anal rape and torture of man, Ayoob conjured up a “duty of care” (to rape a man!) with zero evidence. Now he lies that members urged JPFO to die rather than accept the SAF takeover. Bullshit. I repeat: bullshit.

There were several parties who attempted to contact the JPFO board. They had alternatives and funding to back up their plans. The tiny August shortfall (roughly $1000) was easily covered; they people had 5-figure sums ready and waiting to be put to use. Ayoob dismisses these attempts at constructive engagement as “vitriol,” and any alternative to a takeover by the organization he represents as “clamored for JPFO to “die with dignity.”

Like the anal rape case, Ayoob creates a new reason that had never before been mentioned. Now his self-interested position as an SAF board member is to preserve the JPFO literature.The more likely outcome is that Gottlieb and his lackeys will suppress and attempt to shove the more strident JPFO work down the memory hole. It’s too uncompromising, too principled, too harsh.That attempt will fail. Neither Gottlieb or his lackey Ayoob can understand what has happened, and what will happen. The materials have already been preserved, by the people SAF and Ayoob love to hate. Watch for SAF attempts to suppress them via claims of copyright infringement. If there was any merit to Ayoob’s testilying, SAF would welcome all attempts to publicsize Zelman’s legacy. But since the truth is that the only prize is the JPFO mail lists, more grists for the for-profit Gottlieb mass mailing machine, that will never happen.

“s,” I will respond to your rant point by point, in order.

You started with the New Mexico case awhile back where you and others accused cops and docs of rape when police transported to a medical center a man they believed had stashed drugs up his butt.  I pointed out that anyone who works a patrol car OR an emergency room knows of people who’ve died from doing that. The cops brought him in, the docs did the colonoscopy, and I said we should wait to hear from the cops and the docs themselves why they made the decisions they did.  All these months later, those answers still have not come out.  I won’t make a judgment until they do. You, and those like you, are perfectly ready to form a lynch mob after hearing only one side of the story. I’m not, and I won’t apologize for that.

“s,” you write, “Now he (Ayoob) lies that members urged JPFO to die rather than accept the SAF takeover. Bullshit. I repeat: bullshit.”

The BS is on your end, “s.” I don’t know whether you deliberately lied, or whether you simply spoke from ignorance, but consider the following:

MamaLiberty, 9/1/14, at Claire Wolfe’s blog “1016” comments: “Nothing is forever, obviously. Seems to me an honorable death of the organization is preferable to what may become of it now… but we were not given a choice in the matter.”

J. Eric Andreasen, 8/22/14, at Claire’s original blog entry on the topic, comments: “Claire, this is simply horrifying. Gottlieb is a KAPO, plain and simple. Better to burn JPFO to the ground and start anew.”

On the same day in the same blog, Claire herself commented: “Kapo. Eric, that’s sad. But true. I tend to agree JPFO would be better off gone than turned into an SAF zombie.”

“Kapo.” A term for Jews who were suborned by the Nazis and led other Jews into the death chambers.  A supreme insult to any Jew, particularly the one who just saved Jews for Preservation of Firearms Ownership from oblivion.  And your folks don’t spew vitriol, huh, “s”?  You say I’m wrong for imputing vitriol, yet in your own post you spew words like “lies,” “evidence from thin air,” “bullshit,” “lackeys,” and “testilying.” Can you spell i-r-o-n-y?  Or, h-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y?

The record shows that JPFO came to SAF, not vice versa.  I think the coming months will see JPFO and its message stronger and more widely known than before…no thanks to you and those who think like you.  SAF will spread JPFO’s core message and research to a public that desperately needs to hear it, while you’re still hiding behind your cowardly internet anonymity, spewing your venom at people who’ve done more for gun owners’ civil rights than you ever have or will.

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UPDATES

Time to update a couple of matters recently discussed in this space…

Shaneen Allen: We discussed here earlier the plight of Shaneen Allen, the young single mom who innocently thought her Pennsylvania carry permit would be recognized in New Jersey, and discovered the hard way it was not, leaving her now facing years away from her kids, in prison and with a “felon jacket.”  We learn that a New Jersey lawmaker is introducing a bill to give judges discretion to handle such things with more justice, rather than apply Draconian mandatory penalties: http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Bill-Introduced-to-Grant-Discretion-in-Gun-Cases-273243581.html#ixzz3BpwyMyjB .  Thanks, by the way, to all who have contributed to her defense fund, which can be found at: http://gogetfunding.com/project/shaneen-allen-legal-defense-fund .

JPFO: Jews for Preservation of Firearms Ownership is now under the umbrella of the Second Amendment Foundation.  The board of JPFO explains why, here: http://www.ammoland.com/2014/09/jpfo-comments-on-second-amendment-foundation-merger/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ammoland+(ammoland#axzz3Ce2hzacW .

The changeover has generated an amazing amount of vitriol. Under its late, great founder Aaron Zelman, JPFO amassed a quantity of scholarly research that is vitally important to all in the gun owners’ civil rights movement; it must be preserved, and indeed, more widely disseminated.  SAF is in a position to make that happen. Several people who claim to be members clamored for JPFO to “die with dignity” rather than be turned over to one of the most effective pro-2A organizations in the country…a disturbing “If I can’t have her, nobody will” mentality.

The transition will be a significant topic of discussion at the Gun Rights Policy Conference the end of this month, and among the SAF Board which will meet during the same time frame. As a member of the SAF Board of Trustees, I should have more information for you then.

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POWER FACTOR

In Rifle, one of my favorite gun magazines, I always enjoy reading Terry Wieland’s thoughtful column, “Walnut Hill.”  In the May 2014 issue, he cited an important quote from a great authority on firearms, Bob Hagel.

The quote was, “You should not carry a rifle that will do the job when everything goes right; you should have one that works when everything goes wrong.”

Words to live by, and they don’t apply just to rifles.

It’s looking as if the FBI is going to scale down from .40 caliber Glocks to 9mm, starting next year. The 9mm has long been approved as an option for agents, and a recommended one for those who find the recoil of the .40 too difficult to manage in training and qualification, even though .40 Glocks have been standard issue for the Bureau since the late 1990s.  The .45 caliber Glock 21, if privately purchased, is also approved, and I can think offhand of at least three agents I know who carry them, all “gun guys.”  I hope that option remains for field agents if and when the Bureau goes to 9mm as its primary caliber.

It comes at a time when, as discussed here, there’s a push in the military to go back to .45 from the 9mm that has been standard issue for most elements since the mid-1980s.  Non-expanding ball ammo being the norm for military pistols, I can certainly see the .45 argument: it’s what I’d definitely prefer if I suffered under the same limitations of bullet configuration.  With law enforcement hollow points, current ammo has made the 9mm a much more viable defensive choice than it used to be. Of course, the same new designs make .40 S&W and .45 ACP more potent than they used to be, too.

Lower ammo cost, and smaller rounds allowing more cartridges on board, favor the 9mm over the .45 in a pistol, and the 5.56mm over 7.62mm in the rifle.  Yet if there’s time for only one shot – whether it’s the winter venison or your own life that’s at stake – all of a sudden, more powerful cartridges seem more comforting.

Each of us has to assess our needs and our abilities, balance them, and make the right decision.

Where did you find your balance?

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AN HONEST REPORTER

One ongoing theme of this blog has been, “get both sides of the issue before you judge.” A classic example of why is the 20-part series in this blog that ran from July 13, 2013 into September of that year.  CNN and some other “news” outlets made the shooting of a young attacker by an armed citizen into a racist murder to rival the lynching of Emmett Till, and that became a lynching all its own before a jury heard the facts and saw the evidence and acquitted George Zimmerman.

We’re seeing something of a replay of that in Ferguson, Missouri in the still-controversial shooting of Michael Brown, 18, by police officer Darren Wilson.  CNN has at least put a few voices of reason on the air, such as David Klinger and Mark O’Mara, whose message is one I share: “We can’t judge until we have all the evidence, and we don’t have that yet!”

I just got home from California, where amidst the whole media blitz I ran across a couple of issues of an alternative newspaper out of their state Capitol, the Sacramento News & Review. Amidst the usual “The shooting of Brown is unconscionable” (8/28/14, Page 15) stuff, I found this refreshing bit of honesty by the paper’s on-the-ground-in-Ferguson reporter, Sean Stout:

“I didn’t feel like a journalist for a single second I was in Ferguson,” wrote Stout on Page 9 of the same edition. “I felt like a Brown supporter. I sided with the Ferguson organizers yearning for peace, racial equality and justice for the senseless murder of an unarmed youth.”

Well, Sean Stout, God bless you at least for saying so.  The “unconscionable” statement was in an essay/editorial, where opinions including that one belong.  Stout’s statement and article were in the News section.  He gave total disclosure that what he was writing in “news” was in fact “opinion.”

And that’s a lot more honesty than I’ve seen in a lot of the rest of the mainstream media as regards this case, from reporters and news editors who are just as biased to one side as Stout, but don’t have the integrity to admit it.

If Officer Darren Wilson, an average size man judging by photos, turned into Elastic Man and reached up from the seat of his patrol car and grabbed the six-foot-four Mr. Brown by the throat and brutalized him, and then shot him in the back as he ran – as some of his accusers say – he deserves to go to prison.  But if – as his defenders say – he was attacked violently by Brown, who tried to take his gun and kill him with it, and then shot Brown when he turned from a short run away and lunged again at the officer he had already seriously injured, it has all the hallmarks of a justifiable homicide.

Which is it?  With so much evidence still out…

We. Can’t. Yet. KNOW!

I’m not alone in thinking this way. Here’s an excellent essay by Stephen Hunter, probably the most gun-savvy contemporary novelist out there today: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/08/stephen-hunter-thoughts-on-ferguson.php .

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