You know I love my infographics. I found this one today on Facebook. It was produced by the Proactive Response Group which is a training company out of Chapin, South Carolina. Thanks to North American Rescue for reposting it which is how I found it.
This infographic goes over what is the best method to stop the bleeding by area of the body. What you do for an extremity is not what you would do for the abdomen.
Jared Yanis of the Guns & Gadgets YouTube channel interviewed Paul Valone of Grass Roots North Carolina at the recent SHOT Show.
Paul, who is president of GRNC, made the point that North Carolina is ground zero in the fight for gun rights. Everything you have seen in Virginia could happen here.
Lawsuits by Eric Holder and Democrats over redistricting. Check.
Money from Michael Bloomberg. Check.
Growth in sanctuary counties. A good thing but still check.
Paul made the point to me in Las Vegas that Virginia had to resort to the Second Amendment Sanctuary movement. They had lost their other options. We in North Carolina are not at that point. Yet.
Everyone who attends a county sanctuary meeting needs to be registered to vote. Even more importantly, they need to recruit 10 likeminded friends and make sure they are registered to vote. Then all 11 need to vote for pro-gun candidates in both the March primaries and November general election.
The other thing they need to do is join groups like Grass Roots North Carolina to give us the money and power needed to stand up the influx of money that Michael Bloomberg has already promised will be sent to North Carolina. That $250,000 is just the beginning.
To join GRNC – even if you don’t live in North Carolina – go here. We sure could use the help!
Buncombe County is one of the most liberal counties in the state. It is the sea of blue in an ocean of red here in western North Carolina. Cars are still covered with bumper stickers for Bernie from 2016 and for Obama from 2008. Of course, you see the Resist! bumper sticker everywhere.
It is against this background that I was a bit surprised when I heard at the January gun show that there was a move to ask Buncombe County Commissioners to make it a Second Amendment Sanctuary. I figured a few people would show up and the oh, so liberal commissioners would just roll their eyes.
I was right on the second part but extremely wrong on the first part.
According to local TV station WLOS, the entire Commission meeting room was filled and an overflow room had to be established.
A video clip of the meeting can be seen here.
People for and against making Buncombe a Second Amendment Sanctuary spoke for two hours. Given you are only allowed three minutes to speak, this was a lot of folks. From what I can gather, with few exceptions, most were in favor of making it a sanctuary county.
Amy Benedict of the Demanding Moms spoke against it. The clip above, unfortunately, doesn’t give her full comments. The on-air report noted her saying they weren’t “against guns but gun violence”. Right.
In the end, as I would have expected, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners did nothing. Nonetheless, it does let the Board and the public know that there is strong support for gun rights in my oh, so liberal county.
While it was reported yesterday that Josh Powell was on administrative leave from the NRA, it now appears that their employment relationship has been severed. The initial report was based upon court filings by Ackerman McQueen in Alexandria Circuit Court.
Newsweek is reporting that an email was sent this evening to the members of the Board of Directors informing them that Powell was gone.
From Newsweek:
However, according to an internal email obtained by Newsweek, Powell has departed the NRA entirely.
It was not clear whether Powell was fired or if he resigned. The NRA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The email clarifying the nature of Powell’s departure was sent to the board of directors Saturday evening by the NRA’s general counsel John Frazer.
“Several directors have reported receiving media queries regarding Josh Powell and his employment status with the Association,” he wrote. “For the sake of clarity, we note that Josh is no longer employed by the NRA.”
In noting the sensitivity of discussing personnel matters, Frazer made reference to “the assortment of pending and threatened litigation” facing the gun-rights group.
The Newsweek article also raised a question that someone asked me on Twitter this evening: how did Ackerman McQueen know or find out that Powell had been placed on leave?
Save the Second raised some interesting questions regarding the termination of Powell’s employment with the NRA.
From their Facebook post:
1. Why, specifically?
2. Was this a move against Wayne’s wishes/protection?
3. Was there an insultingly generous severance package to add insult to injury after his disastrous tenure as an overpaid executive that didn’t seem to do anything right?
4. Will the problems he and his decisions/appointments caused in the NRA’s Education & Training Division be undone ?
Given that it will be classified as a personnel matter, I think the whys and wherefores of his termination may never be fully known. Moreover, unless either Wayne or one of his inner circle talks, we won’t know the answer to number 2.
We may have to wait until the Meeting of Members at the Annual Meeting in Nashville to find out if any severance package has been paid. If then.
Only time will tell if the problems Powell caused in Education and Training will be solved.
Hat Tip: Save the Second for the Newsweek article
Below is the Memorandum of Law in Support of Defendant’s Motion to Compel Plaintiff to Provide Meaningful and Supplemental Answers to Interrogatories. This was filed on January 23rd by attorneys for Ackerman McQueen in their legal battle with the National Rifle Association. It covers both the first and second lawsuit filed by the NRA against AckMac in City of Alexandria Circuit Court.
This is where we first learned the Wayne LaPierre’s Chief of Staff Josh Powell was on Administrative Leave. As far as I know, it had not been public knowledge before that.
There is a lot of legalese in these pages but a scan through them does give the reader a sense of the battle between the two former allies.
There is also the amusing line of Q&A indicating that Wayne was upset that someone at AckMac told the Wall Street Journal his grandniece had drawn on the walls of The Four Seasons with crayons.
2020.01.22_Ack MTC Rog Responses by jpr9954 on Scribd
Hat Tip – Beth for the document
If the impeachment trial in the Senate hasn’t caused you to ditch television entirely, you know that tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday. That’s where one set of oversized rich guys beat up on another set of oversized rich guys to see who will get even richer.
Yeah, well, whatever.
The exciting news is that Brownells will be holding Super Barrel II!
From Brownells:
GRINNELL, Iowa (January 31, 2020) – Brownells will give away a barrel full of freedom during the biggest pro football Sunday of the year with its Super Barrel II Weekend extravaganza.
One lucky Brownells fan will bring home the championship-worthy trophy of a barrel full of 13,889 rounds of 5.56mm NATO Hornady Frontier 55-grain M193 ammo.
Starting at 12:01 AM Saturday, February 1, and going through 11:59 PM Sunday, February 2, Super Barrel II contestants can sign up for their chance to win at the Brownells Super Barrel II page.
One lucky winner will be drawn by random and will receive the big red barrel full of ‘Merica valued at $4,239.99.
Containing enough ammo to fill almost 70 standard-length belts for an M249, the barrel weighs more than all but the very biggest football linemen. If all 13,889 cartridges contained inside were laid to end-to-end, they would stretch over 870 yards — almost twice as far as the most passing yards ever in a modern pro football championship game.
Just think what you could do with that amount of ammo!
You could give the Demanding Moms, the Cult of Personality known as Giffords, AND Brady United the collective vapors.
It could make Mike Bloomberg’s campaign against Big Gulps looks as small as he is.
Or it could give you enough ammo to become really proficient with your AR-15!
Wayne LaPierre’s Chief of Staff Joshua Powell has been placed on administrative leave. This is according to court filings in one of the lawsuits involving the NRA and Ackerman McQueen in Virginia courts.
A top National Rifle Association official has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation by the nonprofit group’s lawyer, according to a recent court filing, in a sign of ongoing turmoil surrounding the nation’s largest gun group.
The removal of Joshua L. Powell, the NRA’s chief of staff, was referenced in a Jan. 23 filing in Alexandria Circuit Court by the NRA’s former public relations agency, Ackerman McQueen. “Mr. Powell has now been placed ‘on leave’ by the NRA pending an investigation by NRA counsel,” the filing in Virginia says.
According to the story by Beth Reinhard, the NRA has not responded to multiple requests for comment. It is also unknown whether he is on paid or unpaid leave. His last reported compensation was $919,969 according to the 2018 NRA Form 990.
Powell also refused comment. The Post notes that he, ” removed “National Rifle Association Chief of Staff – Senior Strategist” from his Twitter bio this week.”
Powell has had a checkered history at the NRA. He was the one responsible for rushing CarryGuard out before it was ready when he served as Director of General Operations. He has also been named in sexual harassment allegations involving an Ackerman McQueen employee. It was serious enough that AckMac told Wayne LaPierre that they refused to work with Powell anymore.
As to why now and not earlier, that is unknown. Some have speculated he knew too much dirt and the powers that be wanted to keep him close. Powell has had a reputation according to some of looking out for himself above all else. If so, it would not have been unreasonable to suspect that he would cut a deal to save himself if it came to it.
Eventually we may know the full story. As for today, we know he is on administrative leave and that’s that.
UPDATE: Thanks to Rob Pincus, we have a photo of the filing in question. It is a filing by Ackerman McQueen asking the court to force the NRA to provide additional information regarding its interrogatories. As Powell is on administrative leave and “not in good standin”, his prior responses on behalf of the NRA under oath are no longer sufficient.
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