by Jay Leno was supposed to be the headliner at the NSSF’s State of the Industry Dinner at the SHOT Show. Under intense pressure from the gun prohibitionists, he cancelled his appearance. See the statement from the NSSF below:
We are clearly disappointed by Jay Leno’s decision not to perform at the 2015 SHOT Show State of the Industry Dinner. He unilaterally cancelled his promised appearance due to pressure from the anti-gun lobby, which included false statements about our industry and its commitment to genuine firearms safety, which we attempted to personally correct with him, but to no avail.
We are not deterred by their publicity seeking nor are we unfamiliar with the bullying political tactics of the gun control groups that seem to have as little respect for the First Amendment as they continually demonstrate with regard to the Second Amendment.
We are proud of the many programs that we run that meaningfully contribute to public safety including our long standing Project ChildSafe and Don’t Lie for the Other Guy initiatives in addition to our members everyday work in compliance with comprehensive federal and state laws. We will not allow the lawful commerce in firearms nor our industry to be demonized and we will continue to speak out for the Second Amendment rights of the millions of law-abiding citizens who are our customers.
Despite Mr. Leno’s cancellation, we look forward to having our biggest and best State of the Industry Dinner to date with a performer that respects the contributions of our industry and the customers it supports.
I originally was going to title this post, “The Spine of a Jellyfish”. In other words, the man has no spine if he can’t stand up to the shrill Mommies and the ne’er do wells at CSGV. Saying it was a mistake to have signed on to do the gig just compounds it in my eyes.
While I still believe that, I also understand this is not about one aging comedian. Rather it is part of a coordinated effort to destroy the gun culture by making it an anathema. That is part of the long game behind so-called universal background checks given how it restricts transfers and not just sales.
How do we counter this?
In my opinion, the best way to do it is the grow the grass-roots and with it the gun culture. We need to make personal outreach efforts to friends and family and take them shooting. We have to stop whispering about our gun ownership. We need to take a page from gay rights activists and their “We’re Here – We’re Queer – Get Over It” movement. I can’t think of something with a nice alliteration right now but you get the idea. We have an enumerated civil right to keep and bear arms and we should never forget that. We also have an enumerated civil right to free speech, the right to peaceably assemble, and the right to petition the government to redress grievances. We need to start doing more of all of that and it needs to start today.
I like Jay Leno. Too bad he turned out to be a pussy.
There seem to be two schools of thought about revealing your "gunniness". One is op-sec: don't tell anyone, you will become a target. There is merit to that view. On the other hand, given the demonization of guns and culture in the media, maybe we have to take a risk and come out of the closet. If you are a respected, contributing member of society and say rational things about guns and self defense, you are putting a lie to the redneck gun nut stereotype. Just the other day at my rotary club meeting I mentioned that I had trained a fellow Rotarian on basic pistol. Another Rotarian approached me afterwards about training.
PhilaBOR – you hit the nail on the head. Your example of helping a fellow Rotarian to train is what we all need to be doing. OpSec is fine and dandy but we need stop this business of acting like owning a gun is a sordid dirty secret that must be kept in the closet like an addiction to porn or whatever.
"We will change the culture and make guns even more socially unacceptable than cigarettes. As they should be, since guns put all of us at risk."
This from the MomsDemand facebook page. This is the end goal. No "we respect the 2nd amendment but…." arguments even. Why else would a gun-control group go so hard at an organization that has so much real gun-safety on it's webpage, including free child locks and cooperating with ATF on fighting straw-purchases?
They should get Chris Pratt, he's a gun owner.
Or, just hire celebrities that wont cave. Or, when we hire celebrities give them strong financial incentives not to cave.
Should the NSSF move from Newton, CT? I know they were there before the shooting, but still…
It pretty well shows when push comes to shove what side Leno is really on