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Clowns To The Left Of Me, Jokers To The Right

June 4, 2014 by 7 Comments



The rest of that song by Stealers Wheel goes “here I am stuck in the middle with you.”

That is how I’m feeling about the whole open carry fiasco in Texas. I doubt that there are many readers of this blog that don’t support the extension of open carry in Texas to include handguns. Many states including my own North Carolina have unlicensed open carry.

What is incredibly frustrating is watching Shannon Watts and her fellow gun prohibitionists at Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors making hay out of the bumbling ineptitude of groups like Open Carry Texas. Sonic, Chipotle, and god knows who’s next have issued “Starbucks-style” statement asking the open carry activists to leave them out of the argument.

Sebastian at Shall Not Be Questioned has done yeoman’s work in examining the folly of their actions. You can read some of those posts here, here, and here. There are more.

The attention whoring of these OC activists has caused such backlash that the NRA issued a statement last Thursday which said, in part,

Yet while unlicensed open carry of long guns is also typically legal in most places, it is a rare sight to see someone sidle up next to you in line for lunch with a 7.62 rifle slung across his chest, much less a whole gaggle of folks descending on the same public venue with similar arms.

Let’s not mince words, not only is it rare, it’s downright weird and certainly not a practical way to go normally about your business while being prepared to defend yourself. To those who are not acquainted with the dubious practice of using public displays of firearms as a means to draw attention to oneself or one’s cause, it can be downright scary. It makes folks who might normally be perfectly open-minded about firearms feel uncomfortable and question the motives of pro-gun advocates.

As a result of these hijinx, two popular fast food outlets have recently requested patrons to keep guns off the premises (more information can be found here and here). In other words, the freedom and goodwill these businesses had previously extended to gun owners has been curtailed because of the actions of an attention-hungry few who thought only of themselves and not of those who might be affected by their behavior. To state the obvious, that’s counterproductive for the gun owning community.

More to the point, it’s just not neighborly, which is out of character for the big-hearted residents of Texas. Using guns merely to draw attention to yourself in public not only defies common sense, it shows a lack of consideration and manners. That’s not the Texas way. And that’s certainly not the NRA way.

Chris Cox of the NRA-ILA backed away from that statement yesterday saying it was the personal opinion of some unnamed staffer and not the NRA’s official position. He apologized for any confusion it caused. Others such as Charles Cooke of National Review disagreed saying that it was what needed to be said. I think I and the majority of the gun blogging and gun podcast community would agree that it needed to said.

Bob Owens had an interesting observation on this at BearingArms.com. He noted that often in cases like this where a statement is retracted that it is the original statement which reflects the internal thinking of the organization. In other words, it was what we called back in my political science days “signalling“.


As Michael Bane emphasized today in his Downrange Radio podcast, our goal in the gun rights community needs to be winning. We no more win hearts and minds with these open carry demonstrations in restaurants than the US Air Force did with carpet bombing in South Vietnam. I would send a copy of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People to everyone in the Texas open carry leadership if I could.

I can’t, so in the meantime I will implore them to cut out the narcissistic displays, clean up their websites and Facebook pages, and, as Michael suggested, think before you do stupid. Those of us stuck in the middle would appreciate it.

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Need To Cut Back On Sugar? M&M’s Doesn’t Consider Knives “Family Friendly”

June 2, 2014 by 5 Comments

In my email this morning was an alert from Knife Rights. It seems that they had placed a business-to-business order for packets of M&M candies with the Knife Rights logo on it. The candies were for an upcoming promotion which I assume is the Blade Show. The order was placed, the salesperson was very friendly, and all was good until four days later when the salesperson called back saying his bosses had declined the order because the word “knife” was not considered “family friendly”.

WTF?

I’ll let them continue the story.


The candy was ordered for an upcoming promotion through M&Ms’ customized Business to Business department.
The customer service representative, Christian, was very helpful and
the order was placed. Then four business days later we received a call
from Christian to let us know that they would not fill the order since
“the word knife is not family friendly.” That certainly came as news to
us! Christian apologized for the delay getting back to us, we had called
twice seeking confirmation the order would arrive in time, saying he
had argued hard for us, but that his bosses wouldn’t budge.
      
We
asked for a confirmation in writing of what he had told us, but when
that was not forthcoming, we sent an email to him confirming the
conversation we had and asking the company to correct anything that
wasn’t factually correct. Shortly thereafter, Christian’s supervisor,
Kathy, called. We had a similar conversation with her, to no avail, and
again asked that they confirm that they were rejecting the order for the
reasons both Christian and she provided, that the word “knife” was not
“family friendly.” Instead we received a totally disingenuous email:
  
“Thank you for your email and allowing us to respond to your concern.   
  
We
would like to confirm that we have received and processed your request
to cancel your order.  We are sorry to hear that you are cancelling your
order and hope to have an opportunity to make your next event more
special with personalized MY M&M’S® Chocolate Candies”.
   
To which we replied:   
  
Thanks
for this, but your email falsely states that this order is being
cancelled at my request.  Please note that I do NOT wish for the order
to be cancelled — it was your
company decision to cancel the order because you object to the name and
mission of our civil rights organization.  I have had several phone
calls with representatives of your company trying to save this order. 
Your cancellation notice falsely stating that the order was cancelled at
my request only adds insult to injury, and is outrageous.
  
With
that email they went from simply making what we view as a poor business
decision by irrationally discriminating against Knife Rights, America’s
knife owners and our many Second Amendment supporters, and moved on to
falsely describing the entire transaction in a outrageous attempt to
avoid responsibility for their actions. Knife Rights did not cancel the order; M&M’s did. 
  
We
just thought you ought to know. For ourselves, we intend to wean
ourselves from their products. Mars, Inc. is the parent company and one
of the world’s leading food manufacturers, that while perhaps best known
for its chocolate and candy brands (M&M’s, Milkey Way, Altoids and
Life Savers to name but a few) is also in food, pet care and drink
products with many brands you know, including Wrigley, Uncle Bens, Seeds
of Change, Pedigree and Whiskas. You can find lists of their products
at: http://www.mars.com/global/brands.aspx

Come
Halloween this year our family will carve our pumpkins using several
different knives, but instead of giving the children who come to our
front door M&M’s, Snickers and Milky Ways, as we have for many
years, they will be given a treat that will not bear the Mars, Inc.
brand. 

  
If
you’d like to let them know how you feel about the word “knife” not
being “family friendly,” you can contact M&M’s at: 1-908-852-1000
(M-F 9:00-5:00) or via email using the form at: https://www.mms.com/us/contact 

 You can also leave a comment on M&M’s Facebook page.

My doc has been after me to cut carbs and sugar so
eliminating products from Mars Inc. will become one way I’ll be doing
it.

I’m was surprised to find out that Seeds of Change, which I assumed was a small organic grower of seeds, is just another cog in a corporate conglomerate. I wonder how many back to the earth, Birkenstock-wearing, gardeners are aware of that. You might as well be telling them that it is owned by Monsanto.

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About Obama’s New Baghdad Bob

May 31, 2014 by 5 Comments

The odious White House Press Secretary Jay Carney resigned yesterday and his replacement has been announced. It will be Josh Earnest who had been Special Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy Press Secretary and Chief of Staff in the White House Office of Communications.

Earnest goes back a long ways with Obama. He first started working for Obama in March 2007 as the Iowa Communications Director. As such, I’m guessing he is one of the true believers to have stayed around for so long.

Among all the yada-yada details I found about Earnest – from Kansas City, went to the private Barstow School on scholarship, degree from Rice University – was this tidbit.

The political bug bit, and Earnest worked on the campaign of former Houston mayor Lee Brown after graduating from Rice. Earnest went on to New York, where he served as an aide on former mayor Michael Bloomberg’s first campaign, and became spokesman at the Democratic National Committee.

According to Mediaite, he was a “communications advisor” when he worked for Bloomberg. Supposedly, Bloomberg’s first campaign was rather awkward. Bloomberg’s campaign strategist David Garth described Bloomberg, accurately in my opinion, as “a prick”.

This is just speculation on my part but I would not be surprised to see a greater coordination of message on gun control between the White House and Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors. It just makes sense. Obama likes to use extra-legal means to achieve his goals and Bloomberg has the money to pay for the ads. Earnest makes the ideal conduit. We’ll just have to wait and see.

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Callling It Murder Or Calling It A Shooting – What’s The Difference?

May 30, 2014 by 3 Comments

Does it matter if we call a violent act using a firearm that results in death a murder or a shooting?

It does according to this latest commentary from Dom Raso. Calling something a murder denotes the evil intent and focuses on the perpetrator of the crime. However, as the media is more likely to do, calling it a shooting focuses on the tool used and not the intent. The former is news while the latter is propaganda and allows the media to push its anti-gun agenda.

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He Got Shot In The Buttock

May 30, 2014 by 3 Comments

A teen somewhere in Florida is going to be responsible for many liquid-damaged keyboards and coffee-irrigated sinuses after you read this story. On the plus side, he also provided the inspiration for a unique article published in Case Reports in Emergency Medicine entitled “Gunshot Wound Contamination with Squirrel Tissue:  Wound Care Considerations.”

Our story starts with a young male out hunting for squirrels somewhere in Florida. He had been successful as he had several he had previously killed in his hunting vest and now was attempting to dislodge the latest one he shot. In what probably seemed like a good idea at the time to his teen mind, he used the butt of his shotgun to do this. Unfortunately what he didn’t do was first was unload the shotgun.

I’ll let the good doctors take up the story.

The patient was a teenage Caucasian male with no significant past medical history who arrived to the Emergency Department (ED) via ambulance with a complaint of gunshot wound to the right buttock approximately one hour prior to arrival. According to the patient he was using the butt of his 12 G shotgun to dislodge a dead squirrel from a branch over his head during a hunting trip and shot himself with a load of birdshot in the right buttock. He presented with stable vital signs and reported no pain other than at the wound.


On physical exam the patient appeared in no distress with mild tachycardia with a heart rate of 116. A  cm deep wound on the right buttocks was hemostatic (Figure 1). The edges of the wound were black and ragged, while there was circumferential surrounding erythema that extended 4 cm beyond the wound. Rectal exam revealed normal tone without gross blood and no palpable foreign bodies near the rectum. Debris was observed in the margin of the wound. The rural transporting EMS personnel promptly identified the material as “squirrel parts.”

I know Ambulance Driver is rightly proud of his Florida cohorts for educating those city doctors about the source of the wound contamination.

The fact that the wound was contaminated with squirrel tissue became a major component of the treatment process. The ER docs were concerned about “zoonotic pathogens” being transferred to the wound similar to what might have happened with a rat or squirrel bite. The medical literature notes that these type of bites are sometimes responsible for rat bite fever, rabies, tularemia, and typhus. Our teen hunter’s treatment included aggressive debridement and prophylactic antibiotics which was successful in preventing those and other infections.

While we can joke about it now, this kid stayed in the hospital for 11 days, had two trips to the OR, and underwent more debridement of the wound to remove birdshot and “squirrel parts”. It is a cautionary tale about hunting accidents, possible wound infections, and negligent discharges. One hopes this kid learned a valuable lesson. I’m guessing he’ll be reminded of it every time he sits down for a long while to come.

H/T The Outdoor Pressroom

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If You Live In Prince George’s County, Maryland, May I Suggest…

May 28, 2014 by

If you live in Prince George’s County, Maryland and vote in County Council District 6, may I suggest that you vote for my friend and fellow gunny Kenn Blanchard. He is an honorable and decent man, a believer in freedom and self-determination, and an all-around nice guy. He is running as a Republican in a heavily Democratic county.

Looking back at the 2010 General Election results for Prince George’s County, out of nine districts only one had a contested election. Frankly, that is deplorable. The only contest is who will win the Democratic primary for the respective council districts. Nonetheless, if all you do is elect Democrats with the same mindset, how can you ever change the way things are? The answer is you can’t.

The usual path to higher office starts at the local level with the county councils or commissioners, the boards of alderman, city councils, or even the school board. It is rare that you find someone running for higher office as their starting point. Maryland’s gun laws suck and most members of the Maryland General Assembly got their political start somewhere other than the state legislature. If we as a community want to change these types of laws, we need to start electing good people like Kenn at the local level.

If you want to help Kenn out, you can make a contribution at his campaign website found here. He’s got an uphill battle and he needs our help. I’ve donated and I would encourage you to do so as well. We as a gun culture and community need to support those like Kenn who have stuck their neck out.

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You Want Craven, I’ll Give You Craven

May 27, 2014 by 4 Comments

If you have listened to the news any in the last few days, you have seen an orgy of media reporting devoted to the murders in Santa Barbara. I say murders because while three of the killings by the narcissistic individual  involved a firearm, the other three involved a machete and a hammer. Nonetheless, one of the parents of the victims in his grief blamed the killings on “craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA”.

This post isn’t meant to go into all the legal niceties that the killer observed in obtaining his firearms or how stringent a process the California DOJ’s DROS (Dealer’s Record of Sale) imposes on firearm sales but rather the blood dancing coming from the Brady Campaign. I would go so far as to call it “craven”.

Below is an email I received from the Brady Campaign at noon today. I don’t know why I’m supposed to call Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) as I live in North Carolina and not Arizona. Nonetheless, I’m sure millions of these emails are going out today aimed at senators who voted against Manchin-Toomey last year.

Dear (redacted),

This Memorial Day weekend, while Americans across the nation were honoring our fallen soldiers, we were also overwhelmed by another tragedy – a murderous rampage by a gunman at the University of California-Santa Barbara that claimed six lives and left eight others wounded.

One of those killed was Chris Martinez, whose father Richard had this to say about his devastating loss:

“Chris died because of craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA. They talk about gun rights. What about Chris’ right to live?”

The Brady Campaign stands firmly with Mr. Martinez. He got it exactly right. Politicians continually ignore the will and the well-being of the American public and, instead, take their marching orders and money from the corporate gun lobby.

Shamefully, these politicians do not care who is buying guns – convicted felons, domestic abusers, rapists – just as long as the corporate gun lobby is happily making the biggest possible profit.

Now more than ever, it is essential that we Americans rise up and call out the corporate gun lobby and the ‘craven’ politicians who do their bidding.

Call Senator Flake at 1-866-383-3901

Tell him that you haven’t forgotten when he voted against the amendment to expand Brady background checks and chose to stand with the corporate gun lobby instead of representing the overwhelming majority of his constituents who support background checks.

The gun lobby has millions of dollars from big gun corporations. We have the truth and the voice of every decent American who wants and deserves a nation safe from gun violence.

Thanks to Americans like Richard Martinez, that voice of truth is starting to be heard. Let’s show Mr. Martinez that we are right there beside him. Call Senator Flake today and remind him that he works for the American public and not the corporate gun lobby.

Dan Gross
President
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

P.S. You can make a difference by joining Brady supporters from around the country at the 2014 Brady National Summit in D.C. from June 9 – 10.

Given that Dan Gross began his career in the advertising industry, I’m not surprised that he cherry-picks his “facts” and doesn’t let the truth get in the way of his agenda.

Does the National Rifle Association get substantial donations from firearms manufacturers? Yes but the amount is dwarfed by the amount of money that memberships and individual donations bring in. The gun lobby is you and me and not some amorphous big corporation where big-wigs sit around lighting their cigars with $100 bills.

Would the universal background checks for private sales mandated by Manchin-Toomey have prevented the tragedy in Santa Barbara? No. The killer purchased his firearms legally, underwent the California DOJ’s background checks, was limited to one handgun purchase within a 30 day period, had to wait 10 days (or more) before taking possession of his handgun as required by law, and only had California-compliant magazines in his possession. It should be pointed out that the DROS system is available on-line to any law enforcement officer to check on purchases and is linked to mental health reports including whether a person had been hospitalized or has been prescribed anti-anxiety medications.

And that link at the bottom of Gross’ email?  If you want to attend their so-called summit, you have to pay and they take all major credit cards including Amex and Discover.

If you want to see craven behavior, just go to any of the gun prohibitionists’ websites. Whether it is the Brady Campaign trying to raise money, the Violence Policy Center trying to push their “research”, or Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors trying to build their email list, you are going to see craven behavior – or what I’d call blood dancing – at its worst.

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What Did We Do To Deserve Men Like This?

May 26, 2014 by

As a country we should be asking what did we do to deserve fine young men like Corporal Kyle Carpenter (USMC-Ret.). The White House announced last week that Carpenter will be awarded the Medal of Honor for his gallant actions during a Taliban attack in 2010.

From the announcement:

On June 19, 2014, President Barack Obama will award Corporal William “Kyle” Carpenter, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret), the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry. Corporal Carpenter will receive the Medal of Honor for his courageous actions while serving as an Automatic Rifleman with Company F, 2d Battalion, 9th Marines, Regimental Combat Team 1, 1st Marine Division (Forward), I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

Corporal Carpenter will be the eighth living recipient to be awarded the Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq or Afghanistan. He and his family will join the President at the White House to commemorate his example of selfless service.

The White House announcement unfortunately does nothing to tell the story of Carpenter’s selfless actions that day in Afghanistan which left him grievously wounded.

What Carpenter did was fall on a hand grenade that had been tossed up on the roof where he and LCpl Nick Eufrazio were posting security. The Marine Corps Times had a report on the incident that was published in 2012. At the time, the incident was under investigation to see exactly what happened during that attack. Carpenter doesn’t remember and his fellow Marine LCpl Eufrazio suffered traumatic brain injury from a piece of shrapnel.

Lance Cpls. Kyle Carpenter and Nick Eufrazio were posting security together on a dusty rooftop in Afghanistan when an insurgent tossed a hand grenade at them. The world melted in a white-hot blast, and the two men were rocked by an explosion that could be heard nearly a mile away.

More than a year later, the Marine Corps continues to investigate what occurred, said Lt. Col. James Fullwood and Capt. Michael Manocchio, who served as two of the senior officers in their unit, 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines, out of Camp Lejeune, N.C., during that deployment. Other personnel in the compound during the Nov. 21, 2010, attack insist there’s no doubt Carpenter shielded Eufrazio from most of the blast, and deserves the Medal of Honor.

“Kyle covered that grenade,” said Hospitalman 3rd Class Christopher Frend, the corpsman who first rendered medical care to Carpenter and Eufrazio. “Grenade blasts blow up; they don’t blow down. If he hadn’t done it, what we found would have looked completely different.”

Carpenter describes his injuries in an interview with Marine Corps Times.

Carpenter was medically retired from the Marines in 2013 and is now a full time student at the University of South Carolina. Despite the 30 surgeries over 19 months to repair the injuries he suffered that day in 2010, Carpenter’s spirit wasn’t crushed. Indeed, as he says in the video below, he’s just getting started.

As I said in the intro, we should be asking what did we do as a country to have such fine men who were willing to sacrifice everything in order to protect us. I’m not sure of the answer but I know we should be extremely grateful and I am. So on this Memorial Day 2014, I would like to thank Cpl. Carpenter for his selfless gallantry and I would especially like to remember those who gave everything so that we could be free.

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While I’m On The Subject Of Open Carry

May 23, 2014 by 7 Comments

Rachel, my fellow co-host of The Polite Society Podcast and a gun rights activist in Texas, sent me this link about an agreement on a unified protocol and general policy regarding open carry events put out by a number of open carry groups. As Rachel notes, this is huge given the behind the scenes disagreements among the groups on the best way to push the Texas Legislature to approve open carry of handguns.

The joint release from Texas Carry, Gun Rights Across America, Ellis County Open Carry and Open Carry Texas announcing their unified policy:


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Come and Take It Texas, Texas Carry, Gun Rights Across America and Open Carry Texas Joint Statement on OC of Long Arms – May 21, 2014


Over the past year, our members have done what no other organization has been able to do – put open carry at the forefront of the fight to restore gun rights for all Texans. As we have grown, we have had to adjust our efforts based on lessons learned through hundreds of open carry events, big and small.


Looking back, it has become clear that there is one area in which we have gotten the most resistance and suffered the largest setbacks: open carry of long arms into private businesses. This is not a new phenomenon. Early on, because of our efforts, the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) sent a message to all TABC licensees warning them about allowing our members to open carry into their businesses. This resulted in places like Smashburger asking us to leave our guns at home. Since then, Starbucks, Wendy’s, Jack In The Box, Applebees and most recently, Chipotle have come out asking we not carry our firearms into their establishments.


Whereas, our mission is to get open carry of handguns passed in Texas, we must once again adjust in a way that shines a positive light on our efforts, our members, and our respective organizations. We are humbly and emphatically imploring our members to cease taking long arms into corporate businesses unless invited. Black Powder revolvers have proven to be very effective and align with our goal of legalizing open carry with a handgun. We do understand that not everyone will be able to afford one, but if you can, we are requesting you do so. Almost every leader has gone to Black powder for a reason. It works.


For all further open carry walks with long guns, we are adopting the following unified protocol and general policy to best ensure meeting our respective legislative mission to legalize open carry:

1) Always notify local law enforcement prior to the walk, especially the day of.
2) Carry Flags and signs during your walk to increase awareness.
3) Carry the long gun on a sling, not held.
4) Do not go into corporate businesses without prior permission, preferably not at all.
5) If asked to leave, do so quietly and do not make it a problem.
6) Do not post pics publicly if you do get permission and are able to OC in a cooperate business.
7) Do not go into businesses with TABC signs posted with a long gun (Ever).
8) If at all possible, keep to local small businesses that are 2A friendly.

We ask that members take a step back and make an objective assessment of what we are trying to accomplish and help us to get open carry passed for everyone. We must be willing and able to recognize what works and what doesn’t, but we need your help to make these efforts a success. It will be very difficult to spin holstered, black powder revolvers into a negative story. This is the goal we are currently striving for, open carry of handguns. We know everyone is working hard for this cause. It is simply time to focus on what has been proven to work. The conversation has shifted from open carry of handguns to rifles in businesses, negating our efforts and distracting us from our mission.


We are winning. Because we are winning, we have come under increased scrutiny by media and politicians. Let’s use that spotlight and make the most positive impact we can!


Carry on!


CJ Grisham, Open Carry Texas 

Terry Holcomb, Sr, Texas Carry 

Murdoch Pizgotti, CATI-TX 

Eric Reed, GRAA

Eric Reed of Gun Rights Across America points out some very valid points that are being ignored by the mainstream media and groups like Everytown would have you not know.

Now under Texas state law, a holder of a concealed handgun license is only required to abide by certain signs that have very specific legal verbiage. Up to this point, none of the above aforementioned businesses have posted these legal signs. So it remains legal for a concealed handgun licensee to concealed carry into these establishments with a valid Texas CHL.

The anti-gun groups have won nothing but a public statement by these businesses to make them just go away. As stated in the press release, gun rights is winning. The fight is in Austin, not at Jack in the Box or Chipotle.