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More NY Subpoenas For The NRA

December 13, 2019 by 4 Comments

Danny Hakim of The New York Times is reporting that NY Attorney General Letitia James (D-NY) issued new subpoenas to the National Rifle Association last week. While I have been keeping up with issues related to the NRA, I missed this.

The subpoena, which was described to The New York Times, was issued last week and covers at least four areas, including campaign finance, payments made to board members and tax compliance. Because the N.R.A. is chartered in New York and the office of the attorney general, Letitia James, has a range of enforcement options, the investigation has alarmed N.R.A. officials already grappling with infighting and litigation. The same office brought a case last year that led to the shuttering of President Trump’s foundation.

Among the documents sought by the subpoena are records related to transfers among N.R.A.-controlled entities, including the N.R.A. Foundation, an affiliated charity. Recent tax filings show that the N.R.A. diverted $36 million last year from the foundation in various ways, far more than ever before, raising concerns among tax experts. The transfers came as the N.R.A. experienced financial strains and challenges from gun-control groups, which outspent the organization in the 2018 midterm elections. An earlier analysis by The Times found that the foundation had transferred more than $200 million to the N.R.A. between 2010 and 2017.

The NRA Foundation, you may remember, is now under an investigation by District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine (D-DC). The NRA Foundation is chartered in the District of Columbia.

The New York investigation also is seeking internal documents related to the NRA’s filings with the Federal Election Commission as well as to communication with two political consulting firms. Those firms, Starboard Strategic and OnMessage, are somewhat intertwined. The Cult of Personality known as Giffords has sued the FEC alleging that the NRA paid money to Starboard Strategic as a means to funnel money to Republicans using OnMessage.

The New York Attorney General’s Office had no comments on the subpoenas.

However, NBC reports this response from the NRA outside counsel William Brewer III.

“Of course, the financial records of the NRA and affiliates were audited and reported in tax filings, in accordance with state and federal regulations — a fact that underscores the Association’s commitment to good governance,” Brewer said. “It is easy to understand why the NRA believes that the NYAG’s zeal with respect to this inquiry reflects the investigation’s partisan purpose — not an actual concern that the NRA is not effectively using its assets to pursue its members interests.”

“Regrettably, the NYAG seems to credit hollow rants by a handful of actors who are no longer associated with the NRA,” Brewer continued.

While Brewer seems to dismiss the actions of the NY Attorney General and her office saying it has “a partisan purpose”, she does have extraordinary powers when it comes to non-profit organizations chartered in the state. This includes substantial fines and even the possible dissolution of the NRA. If any of the current or former member of the Board are just sloughing this off as a partisan witch hunt, they are doing so at their peril.

This is serious business. I can’t say that it would not have come up if the Board had been doing their due diligence and taking their fiduciary responsibilities seriously. However, it would have been easier to dismiss as having a “partisan purpose.”

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This Is How You Get A Hot Civil War

December 12, 2019 by 6 Comments

Whether we like it or not, we are in the midst of a civil war. Fortunately, so far, it has been a cold civil war. By cold, I mean it has been primarily a war of words and ideas. No one in their right mind should want a “hot” civil war. Whether it was our own War Between the States or the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, civil wars are violent, nasty, and brutish.

Certain Virginia Democrat politicians seem to have forgotten this in their push for draconian gun control. Their response to the Second Amendment Sanctuary movement is to call down the overwhelming power of the state.

US Rep. Donald McEachin (D-VA) suggested in an interview with the Washington Examiner that Gov. Ralph Northam (D-VA) actually call out the National Guard.

“And ultimately, I’m not the governor, but the governor may have to nationalize the National Guard to enforce the law,” he said. “That’s his call, because I don’t know how serious these counties are and how severe the violations of law will be. But that’s obviously an option he has.”

McEachin has also said that funding to sanctuary counties and cities should be cut off.

US Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) who represents a northern Virginia district has called upon law enforcement to resign if they won’t enforce laws of dubious constitutionality.

Virginia Democratic officials, however, already say local law enforcement supporting these resolutions will face consequences if they do not carry out any law the state Legislature passes.

“I would hope they either resign in good conscience, because they cannot uphold the law which they are sworn to uphold, or they’re prosecuted for failure to fulfill their oath,” Democratic Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly told the Washington Examiner of local county police who may refuse to enforce future gun control measures. “The law is the law. If that becomes the law, you don’t have a choice, not if you’re a sworn officer of the law.”

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring (D-VA) has characterized the sanctuary effort as something “ginned up” by “the gun lobby”.

“The resolutions that are being passed are being ginned up by the gun lobby to try to scare people. What we’re talking about here are laws that will make our communities and our streets safer. We’re talking about universal background checks, finally, maybe, Virginia will pass universal background checks to make sure that people who are dangerous, who are criminals and who aren’t permitted to buy guns, won’t be able to buy guns,” said Herring. “So, when Virginia passes these gun safety laws that they will be followed, they will be enforced.”

It should be noted that Herring won his office with less than a thousand votes. The difference probably was the $1.3 million invested by Michael Bloomberg’s Independence PAC. Herring has been consistently anti-gun since the 2015 election.

The incendiary talk from these Virginia Democrats should be condemned. If they are intent on provoking a confrontation between agents of the state and citizens defending their God given, constitutionally guaranteed rights, they are not going to like the result. The first citizen killed while resisting Northam’s laws on confiscation will be the spark that sets off that hot civil war.

It will not be pretty.

The only hopeful sign is that many Guardsmen and state police officials will remain loyal to their oath to defend the Constitution and refuse to participate.

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The Day Of The .22 Pistols

December 11, 2019 by 2 Comments

Glock started the day with the rollout of their G44 .22 LR pistol. Later this afternoon, Ruger announced a new model of their Mark IV 22/45 Lite.

Unlike Glock’s G44, the new model is more of a change in appearance than anything else. The color change is a diamond gray upper with a gold anodized trigger and barrel. Also unlike the G44, it comes with a threaded barrel to use with a suppressor.

According to Davidson’s Gallery of Guns, the MSRP for the G44 is $430. Meanwhile, according to Ruger, the MSRP for the Mark IV 22/45 will be $559 with a street price in the $450 range. I imagine the G44 will be selling for close to MSRP initially but I could be wrong on that.

The release of the G44 today has resulted in a number of memes. Perhaps the one most relevant to this post is below.

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Glock 44 (Update)

December 10, 2019 by 1 Comment

If you divide the model number of the newest Glock pistol in half, you get 22 which just so happens to be its caliber. Yes, the Glock 44 is in .22 LR.

Glock held a livestreaming announcement this morning of their newest addition to their line of pistols. The event started with some comments by Shane Coley, Team Glock captain. It was then followed by Glock President Gunter Gigacher reading a letter from Gaston Glock regarding the company, etc.

Screen cap of letter

I think many of the participants in the livestream anticipated that Glock was going to release a pistol caliber carbine. When you read Gaston Glock’s letter, he says “GLOCK is not just a pistol company”.

The Glock 44 is the size of a Glock 19 and has a hybrid steel-polymer slide to reduce weight. You can read all the dimensions of the new pistol on Glock’s website here. I think some may be disappointed that the Glock 44 only comes with a 10 round magazine.

Towards the end of the presentation, they brought out a panel which included firearms trainer Tatiana Whitlock. In her opinion, she thought the Glock 44 would be excellent for training new shooters. Moreover, given the size will be the same as the Glock 19, the transition to an actual carry pistol would be easier and holsters would be interchangeable.

Another member of the panel was a representative from Federal ammo. He said they tested the Glock 44 with everything from standard velocity .22 LR ammo up to CCI Stingers and Mini-Mags. It handled everything without fail.

I’m sure they will sell tons of these pistols just because the name on the slide is Glock. It seems obvious that this pistol is aimed at new shooters, the training market, and those with hand issues such as arthritis. As to being revolutionary, not so much.

UPDATE: According to a press release sent out by Glock, Inc., the new Glock 44 pistol will officially go on sale January 20, 2020.

They also said this on the features:

The G44 features many of the latest enhancements seen in the 5th Generation of GLOCK pistols such as the ambidextrous slide stop lever and reversible magazine catch, the GLOCK Marksman barrel (GMB) for increased accuracy and performance, adjustable back straps, and adjustable rear sights.  The G44 also features a ghost hole loaded chamber indicator and comes standard with two 10-round load assist magazines. 

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Ens. Joshua Kaleb Watson, USN, RIP

December 8, 2019 by 4 Comments

Ensign Joshua Kaleb Watson was a 2019 US Naval Academy graduate. He reported to Pensacola NAS on November 15th. He was serving as the Officer of the Deck when the Saudi jihadist opened fire on Friday. Watson, though shot five times, dragged himself out of the building, flagged down first responders, and informed them who and where the jihadist was located. By his actions, he saved multiple lives.

Watson served as captain of the USNA Rifle Team. While captain, the Navy team beat Army’s rifle team for the first time in a decade. He had a 4-year average of 580.6 (out of 600 possible) while competing in both smallbore and air rifle. He also competed in the NCAA Rifle Championships.

His father Benjamin said this about his son and his actions.

“His mission was to confront evil,” he said. “To bring the fight to them, wherever it took him. He was willing to risk his life for his country. We never thought he would die in Florida.”

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Sorry Brady But Fred Is Not A Survivor

December 7, 2019 by 1 Comment

Brady United (aka the renamed Brady Campaign) sends out a weekly digest promoting gun control. This week’s digest included this on the National Vigil for All Victims of Gun Violence (sic).

“I’m in a room full of heroes. And we’re going to get gun safety legislation passed.”

Those are survivor Fred Guttenberg’s moving words as he addressed the room at the National Vigil for All Victims of Gun Violence at St. Mark’s Church in Washington, D.C. Held each year by the Newtown Foundation and Newtown Action Alliance, the interfaith vigil brings together survivors and families from across the country to name and remember their loved ones and #HonorWithAction. The event uplifted survivor voices in a way not often experienced in Washington. Kristen Song, whose son, Ethan, was killed by family fire, shared how she channels her grief into action. Rep. Lucy McBath spoke of her son, Jordan, and how she will never stop fighting to end gun violence.

I don’t want to sound callous but Fred Guttenberg, Kristen Song, and Lucy McBath are not survivors. None were wounded and none were even there when their kids died.

Fred Guttenberg’s daughter Jaime was killed at Margery Stoneman Douglas HS while the school resource officer cowered outside. School policy and lenient discipline allowed the killer to have a clean record and pass a NICS check.

Kristen Song’s son Ethan died because he was playing with a loaded gun at a friend’s house. He died from negligent handling of the firearm and negligent storage. He didn’t die from “family fire”.

Lucy McBath’s son Jordan Davis was in the wrong place at the wrong time. A Florida jury convicted his killer on three counts of attempted murder and one counted of first degree murder. The killer is serving a term of life without parole plus 90 years.

Losing a child is heart wrenching regardless of how it happens. However, to say these parents are survivors of “gun violence” (sic) is akin to saying I’m a cancer survivor because my first wife Rosanne died from breast cancer. I shouldn’t be considered a survivor and neither should they.

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A Day That Will Live In Infamy Plus 78 Years

December 7, 2019 by

As I have noted many times in the past, the attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy was a watershed event for my parent’s generation. My dad had already been in the US Army for a year. My mom was working for the British Lend-Lease office in New York City. It was their “where were you when Kennedy was shot” or “Challenger explosion” event.

Both of my parents would be 100 if they were alive today. They were both 22 on December 7, 1941. They would be a bit older than many of the enlisted sailors but about the age of the young ensigns or Lt. JGs in Hawaii that day.

I don’t mean to go all maudlin on you but I think it is important to remember those who fought and died on that sunny December morning. The teaching of history has become perverted in recent times. I’ve always thought revisionist historians were suspect.

As to those who say the US provoked the Japanese into crossing the Pacific and attacking Pearl Harbor, they can shove it where the sun doesn’t shine. It was a strategic, though erroneous, decision made to keep the US Navy at bay while Japan went about creating the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

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Duped Or Didn’t Care?

December 6, 2019 by 2 Comments

After I posted about the indictment of Rep. Movita Johnson-Harrell for theft from her own charity, I began to wonder about her campaign finances. One of the charges against her included failing to file a campaign finance report. What I found was interesting.

Johnson-Harrell was quoted in a fawning story by the Philadelphia Inquirer on her motivation to run for office as saying this:

“I ran because we need the bodies to stop dropping in every city across the nation,” said Johnson-Harrell, 53. “It’s our responsibility as legislators and leaders to do this.”

She made “gun violence” (sic) and gun control a centerpiece of her campaign in the special election. She was already known for having started the Charles Foundation to advocate for more gun control in memory of her murdered son. She was also the Vice Chair of Heeding God’s Call to Eliminate Gun Violence (sic). Thus, it was reasonable to assume she would get support from the gun prohibitionists.

And she did with a stirring endorsement from Everytown.

“After more than a dozen Moms Demand Action volunteers won elected office in 2018, I’m so excited to see yet another strong candidate emerge from our grassroots army of volunteers,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. “Movita Johnson-Harrell has been invaluable to our Pennsylvania chapter and I have no doubt that she’ll be an incredible leader at the statehouse, too.”

Endorsements are nice but modern campaigns run on money.

  • $500 – Ceasefire PA PAC
  • $250 – Shira Goodman, Executive Director, Ceasefire PA
  • $100 – Shawn Kraemer, President, Ceasefire PA
  • $100 – Bryan Miller, founder, Heeding God’s Call

Johnson-Harrell also received a $1,000 donation from Dana Bazelon of the Soros-bought Philadelphia DA’s Office and a $5,000 donation from the Committee for a Better Tomorrow which is the PAC for the Pennsylvania trial lawyers. She also received substantial donations from a variety of union-affiliated political action committees.

Johnson-Harrell’s financial issues were not a secret. Before she got the nomination by the Philadelphia Democratic Committee, she was grilled on her finances by ward leaders. Moreover, she only got the nomination because the more established candidates had issues with residency.

Going back to the headline, were those anti-gun stalwarts who donated to Johnson-Harrell duped by her? Or, could it have been that despite her known troubled finances, her fur coats, and her Porsche, they just didn’t care because they knew they would have a gun control advocate in Harrisburg? Would it have been, “Yeah, she’s a thief but she’s our thief” and the optics of having an African-American, Muslim woman who had family members murdered outweighed every thing else?

I doubt we will ever know and I know we would not get an honest answer if we asked.

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Another Corrupt Anti-Gun Politician Indicted

December 5, 2019 by 6 Comments

Pennsylvania State Rep. Movita Johnson-Harrell (D-Philadelphia) was indicted yesterday on charges stemming from her theft of over $500,000 from a charity she founded.

The Philadelphia Inquirer details Johnson-Harrell’s anti-gun activism in this story.

Alyssa Biederman, Philadelphia Inquirer

The AP notes:

Johnson-Harrell, the first female Muslim member of the House, came to office with the intensely personal story of having endured the shooting deaths of her father, brother, cousin and 18-year-old son. She campaigned on a platform of ending gun violence, and is active in an anti-gun violence foundation named for her son Charles, who was shot to death in 2011.

The criminal complaint against Rep. Johnson-Harrell lists a variety of charges against her. They include two counts of theft by unlawful taking, theft by deception, perjury, two counts of tampering with public records, and reporting by candidates and political committees. 

In announcing the charges, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D-PA) said:

Shapiro said the defendant personally spent more than $500,000 from Motivations Education & Consultation Associates, or MECA, on vacations, designer clothing, luxury car payments, real estate purchases, past-due mortgage payments, and other personal expenses.

“When corruption erodes the trust that is built between governmental entities and citizens, no one wins,” Shapiro said. “I’ve said time and time again as Attorney General that no one is above the law, no matter their position of power. And today is no different.”

“Representative Johnson-Harrell continuously diverted Medicaid and social security disability funds from her charity to help Philadelphia’s most vulnerable communities for her own personal use. She spent almost $15,000 on clothing, including online shopping sprees at Ralph Lauren and fox fur coats. She traveled to Mexico, Orlando, Georgia and Maryland on lavish trips costing $16,000 of MECA funds,” Attorney General Shapiro said. “She spent $2,000 on overdue car payments on her Porsche. Another $4,000 on tuition for a relative. And, she spent almost $20,000 on overdue mortgage payments.”

Johnson-Harrell earned a salary of $89,000 while serving in the Pennsylvania General Assembly and had left a job with the Philadelphia DA’s Office as a victim’s advocate which paid $104,000 yearly. It is reported that her thefts from MECA continued while she was working for the DA’s Office as well as in her elected position.

According to her official legislative biography, Johnson-Harrell was a community college graduate who went on to earn both undergraduate and graduate degrees from Ivy League University of Pennsylvania. Reading between the lines, with an age of 53 and her high school diploma date of 1997, she was an adult student when she completed her education. For someone her age, her high school graduation normally would have been in the 1984-85 time period.

Johnson-Harrell was elected in a special election in March to replace Rep. Vanessa Lowery Brown (D-Philadelphia). Rep. Brown resigned from office in December 2018 after being sentenced for bribery and other charges. The Attorney General’s Office says Johnson-Harrell will be pleading guilty and will resign from office effective December 13th.

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The Difference Between Them And US

December 4, 2019 by

I received an email solicitation from North Carolinians Against Gun Violence (sic) yesterday. They were hoping I’d donate to them on Giving Tuesday. Of course, that was never going to happen. I’m on their email list only to see what the enemies of freedom are planning.

What really caught my eye was how they intended to use the money.

  • Contract with a lobbying firm that advocates for gun violence prevention every day at the NC General Assembly. They tell us when gun-related bills are on the move, so we can let you know when to call lawmakers and what to say.
  • Employ a community organizer to work with volunteers state-wide. For the first time, we had a staff member devoted to educating, organizing, and giving free gun locks from the mountains to the coast. 
  • Give volunteers more opportunities to get involved. In 2019, we’ve worked with supporters in key districts to meet with their lawmaker, write a letter to the editor, call other supporters to stop harmful bills, and much more!

Two of their key uses for donations are to hire a lobbyist and to employ a community organizer. These are the kinds of things that a not-really-grassroots type organization has to do. As Sean Sorrentino pointed out about NCGV a few years ago, they are now a subsidiary of Bloomberg’s gun control empire.

As many of my readers know, I’ve been active with Grass Roots North Carolina for a number of years. GRNC is the independent state-level gun rights group in North Carolina. It has no paid lobbyist, no paid community organizer, and indeed no paid anybody. We are an all volunteer organization that is really grass roots. Just as important, we get pro-gun bills passed and anti-gun bills killed. Our record isn’t 100 percent but we win a lot more than we lose or tie.

To sum it up, they want money for employees to curtail your rights while we are a group of volunteers using donations to advance firearm freedom.