Another day, another round of Project Gunwalker tapes. If ATF Agent Hope McAllister avoids being indicted for obstruction of justice, it will only because she has something even more damning on the higher ups in that file she spoke about earlier.
The CBS News transcripts of the tapes can be found here.
The Second Amendment Foundation has put out this reminder about the 2011 Gun Rights Policy Conference to be held this weekend just outside of Chicago in Rosemont, Illinois.
26TH ANNUAL GUN RIGHTS CONFERENCE SLATED THIS WEEKEND IN CHICAGO
BELLEVUE, WA – Gun rights activists from across the country will gather this weekend Sept 23-25 at the Chicago O’Hare Airport Hyatt Regency hotel for the 26th annual Gun Rights Policy Conference, sponsored by the Second Amendment Foundation and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
SAF Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb said pre-registration of over 700 for this weekend’s event suggests there will a great turnout, not only by Illinois activists, but also firearm owners from as far away as Hawaii and Pureto Rico, as well as neighboring Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and Missouri. This event is free, and includes a Saturday awards luncheon that will recognize the accomplishments of gun rights leaders from the national level down to the grassroots.
“Since last year’s SAF victory in McDonald v. City of Chicago before the U.S. Supreme Court, we’ve been looking forward to this weekend’s gathering,” Gottlieb stated. “We are joined by members of the Illinois State Rifle Association, which joined us in the McDonald case, and by our expert legal team that made it happen.
“It is only fitting that we gather in the Windy City,” he continued, “not only for this important conference, but also to celebrate the Supreme Court victory. This was a win for all gun owners, because the high court incorporated the Second Amendment to the states, thus paving the way for challenges to onerous state and local gun laws and regulations that have placed onerous restrictions on a fundamental civil right.
SAF is currently engaged in federal court challenges to restrictive gun regulations and statutes in New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Maryland, Massachusetts and California, and elsewhere.
This year’s jam-packed agenda features panel discussions covering current and possible future legal actions, the importance of election outcomes to the federal courts and Supreme Court, gun politics, legislative challenges and more. Experts from virtually all corners of the gun rights movement will be on hand, and the annual awards luncheon on Saturday promises to be a crowd pleaser.
“We look forward to a very active and productive weekend for firearms freedom,” Gottlieb stated.
The Washington Post doesn’t think much of HR 822 – National Right-To-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011 – if their editorial yesterday is any indication. As Sebastian at Snowflakes in Hell notes, fundamental constitutional rights are not a buffet where you can pick and choose.
Oft times, ridicule rather than anger is the best way to deal with our opponents and Sebastian does an admirable job with this paraphrase of part of the Post editorial.
Many states already have agreements to recognize newspaper licenses from other jurisdictions. Virginia, for example, honors licenses from 27 other states that have similarly robust standards; Maryland, which strictly regulates what newspapers may be sold, and the District, which essentially prohibits it, do not recognize out-of-state licenses. These are legitimate choices that would be overridden by a federal legislature that too easily bends to the will of the news lobby. Nevada, a strong press-rights state, rescinded its agreement with Utah because Utah does not require training in acceptable viewpoints. Why should Congress to overrule that judgment?
Sen. Chuck Grassley was interviewed by Ginny Simone of NRA News about the secret tape recordings of ATF Agent Hope McAllister and Lone Wolf Trading Co. owner Andre Howard. He made an interesting point that the tapes would need to be shared with the straw purchasing defendants under the Brady Rule at some point. However, he went on to say that the trials were a long way in the future and that due to that they shouldn’t have been shared with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Arizona until then. As it is, he said, this will make their investigation harder.
In a speech given at the kickoff breakfast for the African-American Day Parade in New York City’s Harlem, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) called for shutting down some prisons in order to save money. He also called for more Federal gun control.
Cuomo also pushed for stricter gun control laws from the federal government.
“It has been decades where we have been fighting Washington for sensible laws controlling guns and we need those laws passed and we need them passed now. We’re losing too many people out in the streets,” he said.
Lest it be forgotten, when he was Bill Clinton’s Secretary for Housing and Urban Development, Cuomo was responsible for pushing extortion-like lawsuits against gun manufacturers and for signing the infamous agreement with Smith and Wesson that allowed the government to mandate many so-called safety features. That agreement was signed only after the government essentially said “sign or we’ll sue you out of business.” It was later repudiated by the new owners of Smith and Wesson.
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms has responded to Cuomo’s new call for gun control with a blistering response.
BELLEVUE, WA – New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s call for more gun control laws while advocating the closure of prisons in a Sunday speech proves he is “drinking too much of Michael Bloomberg’s Kool-Aid,” the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.
Gov. Cuomo made his comments during a Harlem breakfast prior to the African-American Day parade, according to the New York Daily News. He reportedly said closing some prisons would release more funding for local programs.
“If Andrew Cuomo thinks keeping thugs out of prison, so he can pump the money into some community program while pushing for further disarmament of potential crime victims makes sense,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “he’s been breathing too much of the same air as the mayor of New York City. The other day, Bloomberg was babbling about riots in the streets if the government doesn’t ‘do something’ about creating jobs. It now appears Andrew Cuomo wants to keep hoodlums working, in the neighborhoods, in the convenience stores, on the streets; anywhere they can rob and steal from honest citizens.”
Gov. Cuomo also complained that we could send a person to Harvard University for the same amount it costs to incarcerate them.
“Well,” Gottlieb said, “that certainly makes sense. Let’s just move thugs to college campuses. Maybe the governor thinks criminals will climb the ladder of success by robbing a more affluent class of victims.
“Andrew Cuomo and Michael Bloomberg apparently live in the same fantasy world,” Gottlieb said. “They want to throw government money around, either to invent make-work jobs that accomplish nothing, or to pad some social program at the expense of much-needed jail space, while working overtime to disarm law-abiding citizens. They’re not in the State of New York; they’re in a state of confusion.”
Katie Pavlich of Townhall.com was interviewed by Cam Edwards of NRA News about the tapes that have been leaking out on Project Gunwalker. These are taped conversations between Operation Fast and Furious case agent ATF Agent Hope McAllister and Lone Wolf Trading Company owner Andre Howard.
Michael Bane of Down Range TV interviewed gunsmith Cory Trapp of Gunsite about the changes he has seen in 1911s as they come from the manufacturer over the past 20-30 years. We are lucky to be living in the age we are as the factory standard gun of today was the custom gun of the late 70s.
We as gun owners need to stop seeing the media as a monolithic entity and, more importantly, always assuming that they are against us.
There is the elite media consisting of the networks, the cable news channels, and the major urban daily newspapers. Then there are local TV and radio stations along with the hometown newspapers. While the former is full of those who wish our Second Amendment rights were curtailed, the same can’t be said for the latter.
The local media is always on the lookout for a good story and they can be cultivated. If they say something stupid on the air about guns, it is most likely out of youthful ignorance rather than malice. Rather than jumping down their throats when they say the stupid stuff, seek to educate them. The results can be worthwhile.
A case in point. Sean Sorrentino of An NC Gun Blog has become friends with NBC-17 Raleigh’s Jackie Faye. After he did a blog post last week on the increase in Concealed Handgun Permits in North Carolina, he sent it along to her. The result was the on-camera story below.
I think Ms. Faye did a very fair story on the topic. If Sean hadn’t established a relationship with her earlier, the story about the double digit growth in Concealed Handgun Permits probably would not have been aired.
Thanks are due to Sean for taking the time to build that relationship with a local reporter. More stories like this one is what it will take to re-normalize firearms in American society.
Rose Mary Woods was President Richard Nixon’s personal secretary. She was the one officially responsible for the infamous 18-minute gap in the Watergate tapes. Whether she was the one who accidentally erased the tape or whether it was really an accident will remain one of the unsolved mysteries of the Watergate affair.
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| Woods demonstrating how she accidentally erased the tape. |
Given the newest batch of recordings released by Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News of ATF Agent Hope McAllister and gun store owner Andre Howard, Attorney General Eric Holder is probably wishing that a Miss Woods or a modern equivalent had erased these tapes.
The quote of the day comes from David Codrea. In his National Gun Rights Examiner column, he looks at the extreme reluctance of the elite or mainstream media to even acknowledge Operation Fast and Furious as a scandal. According to Dartmouth College political scientist Brendan Nyhan, it isn’t officially a scandal until it makes the front page of the Washington Post and the reporter uses the word scandal.
So—if the only “official” media outlets willing to call “Gunwalker” a “scandal” are some jerkwater paper in racist, anti-immigrant Arizona, the Teabagger/Troglodyte-appealing Faux News and a CBS blog that isn‘t even getting air time on the actual network news program anymore (hey, I’m just trying to get into the mindset of the elite information gatekeepers), what chance do we flyover knuckledraggers have of getting the mighty Pravda on the Potomac to call an international criminal conspiracy resulting in untold human deaths and reaching across bureaus, agencies and departments and layers of lawyers at least to the Cabinet level a “scandal”?
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