strategy

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It’s Not Just Legislatures That Are Targeted

May 3, 2019 by 4 Comments

We’ve long said that if you want to make sure you get pro-gun politicians elected to Congress and the various state houses, we have to start pushing candidates at the local level. It is the rare candidate that starts out running for office at the state or national level. For every Donald Trump, there are thousands and thousands of other politicians that started with the school board, town council, or even just a town or county appointed committee.

Everytown has just made endorsements for three candidates at the school board or city council level. The fact that they are pushing gun prohibitionists at this level says a number of things. First, they are actually using Bloomberg’s money to start building an actual grassroots. Second, they recognize that candidates start local and then move up from there. Third, it is an expansion of their efforts from the state level to the local level since they have no had success (so far) at the nation level. Finally, getting anti-gun politicians elected to school boards will help in their efforts to make schools less safe (gun free zones) and to encourage hoplophobia in the curriculum.

From their press release:

NEW YORK – Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund today endorsed three Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America volunteers, two of whom are also survivors of gun violence. The endorsements include Rhonda Hart, a survivor of gun violence and a volunteer with the Texas chapter of Moms Demand Action; DeAndra Yates-Dycus, a survivor of gun violence and a volunteer with the Indiana chapter of Moms Demand Action; and Christine McGrath, a volunteer with the New Jersey chapter of Moms Demand Action.


“As leaders in the gun safety movement, these candidates have proven that they will never stop fighting to protect their neighbors,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “Everytown is proud to endorse Rhonda Hart and DeAndra Yates-Dycus — gun violence survivors who are turning their pain into action — and Christine McGrath, a Moms Demand Action volunteer leader who is working hard to keep her community safe.”


“These volunteers and survivors, some of whom have experienced firsthand the toll of our nation’s gun violence crisis, are running for elected office to enact change in their communities,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. “Our volunteers have the courage and fortitude to do whatever it takes to make their communities safer, including moving from shaping policy as volunteers to actually making it as lawmakers.”


More on the volunteers and survivors endorsed today and their elections:


*Rhonda Hart, Dickinson, Texas School Board
Hart’s 14-year-old daughter, Kimberly Vaughan, was killed in the shooting at Santa Fe High school almost a year ago. Before the shooting, Hart was a school bus driver in Santa Fe, Texas. Hart is a volunteer leader with the Texas chapter of Moms Demand Action and an Everytown Survivor Fellow. Her general election for Dickinson School Board in Texas is on May 4.


*DeAndra Yates-Dycus, Indianapolis City-Council District 13
Yates-Dycus’ 13-year-old son, Dre, was wounded by a stray bullet in Indianapolis on February 1, 2014. Yates-Dycus is a volunteer leader with the Indiana chapter of Moms Demand Action and an Everytown Survivor Fellow. Her primary election for Indianapolis City-Council District 13 is on May 7.


*Christine McGrath, Verona, New Jersey Town Council
McGrath has been a volunteer leader with the New Jersey chapter of Moms Demand Action in Essex County for the past two years. She’s running for Verona Town Council and her general election is on May 14.

UPDATE:  The endorsement of Rhonda Hart by Everytown doesn’t seem to have impressed the voters in Dickinson. According to unofficial results, she lost to Corey Magliolo who received 67% of the vote to her 33%.

The endorsement from New York City based Everytown reminds me of this.

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Interesting But Not The Best Of Ideas

December 26, 2012 by 5 Comments

By now you may have read about the DC Metropolitan Police Department’s active investigation into David Gregory. The host of NBC’s Meet the Press thought a 30 round AR magazine would make a cool prop to shake in the face of Wayne LaPierre this past Sunday. What Gregory didn’t think about was the DC law which forbids the mere possession of any magazine that is capable of holding more than 10 rounds. If he did think about the law, he obviously assumed it didn’t apply to “esteemed journalists” such as himself.

Now conservative attorney Aaron Walker is offering to defend Gregory on Second Amendment grounds in a challenge to the DC law. Walker, who blogs and tweets as “Aaron Worthing”, made the offer yesterday on Twitter. Twitchy has aggregated the tweets by Walker on the subject here. Walker is better known for the whole Brett Kimberlin saga.

While at first blush it sounds like a great idea challenging the DC law on Second Amendment grounds to get a gun hater off, in this case it is rather short sighted. As Alan Gura has pointed out many times in many venues, Second Amendment litigation needs to be strategic. Case law needs to built bit by bit and precedents set. It is a cumulative process where the success of the current case depends upon earlier positive precedents. This is the same process that Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund used over time to defeat both de jure and de facto segregation by race.

The threat to this strategy comes from both criminal attorneys trying to use the Second Amendment to get crooks off the hook and misguided ideologues like Leonard Embody who represent themselves in court. I think defending David Gregory in a court of law on Second Amendment grounds would likewise be a threat to this strategy. While you and I may disagree, I think it highly unlikely at this time that a court would find the DC restrictions unreasonable and inconsistent with the Heller decision.

So I would say to Aaron Walker, while it sounds like a cool idea, don’t go there if you care at all about the Second Amendment.

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Is NYC Trying to Avoid Being the Next Target?

October 27, 2010 by

Sebastian at the Snow Flakes In Hell blog had two posts yesterday about New York City and Mayor Bloomberg. One post detailed the proposed reduction in fees to obtain a gun permit in the city and the other looked at New York’s “reasons” for denying a permit. Both of these are worth a read.

I’m sure that NYC will be sued eventually on Second and Fourteenth Amendment grounds. I just don’t think it will be until some of the other cases currently in litigation advance beyond the competing motions stage. Of course, the New York City Council could pass some new egregious gun restriction like Chicago and then I think the suits would fly.

However, I don’t think a full frontal assault on NYC and their laws, in my opinion, is the course that Alan Gura and the Second Amendment Foundation will take. It isn’t that “the Alans” won’t sue big targets – they will – but I think they want to have all the pieces in place when they do sue. One of those pieces has got to be Kachalsky v. Cacace which is working its way eventually to trial in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. A precedent set in this case would then be valid in NYC because they are in the same judicial district.

Strategy and not just mere tactics is what will win our battles with the anti-gun, anti-civil rights forces. Just filing a case because you can – see for example the third Chicago gun case, Second Amendment Arms et al v. Chicago et al – is not the way to go about it.

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A Pact with the Devil

June 16, 2010 by

On August 23, 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, as the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union was unofficially known, was approved by Stalin and Hitler. Less than two years later, Hitler unleashed Operation Barbarossa upon Stalin’s Soviet Union. Russian losses in the first few months, including killed, wounded, or taken prisoner, ran into the millions. This is what happens when you make a pact with the devil.

The NRA has made such a pact with the House Democrats on HR 5175, the DISCLOSE Act, in which in return for a carve-out exempting them from it provisions they will not oppose it. Congressman Heath Shuler (D-NC 11) has submitted an amendment to the DISCLOSE Act that will reportedly exempt 501(c)4 nonprofit political organizations that have “more than one million members, have been in existence for more than 10 years, have members in all 50 states and raise 15 percent or less of their funds from corporations”. The DISCLOSE Act is the Democrat’s reaction to the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case.

According to the Center for Competitive Politics, the DISCLOSE Act proposes legislation that:

would ban many companies from airing political ads, give candidates a windfall subsidy in ad time to respond to independent ads, regulate long-protected issue advocacy with more restrictive coordination rules and force nonprofits and trade groups to disclose their donors-even if donors don’t intend their funds to be used for influencing elections.

The NRA has obviously started to feel heat from conservative groups as well as their members. The NRA Institute for Legislative Action released this statement by email yesterday evening:

Statement From The National Rifle
Association On H.R. 5175, The Disclose Act


The National Rifle Association believes that any restrictions on the political speech of Americans are unconstitutional.

In the past, through the courts and in Congress, the NRA has opposed any effort to restrict the rights of its four million members to speak and have their voices heard on behalf of gun owners nationwide.

The NRA’s opposition to restrictions on political speech includes its May 26, 2010 letter to Members of Congress expressing strong concerns about H.R. 5175, the DISCLOSE Act. As it stood at the time of that letter, the measure would have undermined or obliterated virtually all of the NRA’s right to free political speech and, therefore, jeopardized the Second Amendment rights of every law-abiding American.

The most potent defense of the Second Amendment requires the most adamant exercise of the First Amendment. The NRA stands absolutely obligated to its members to ensure maximum access to the First Amendment, in order to protect and preserve the freedom of the Second Amendment.

The NRA must preserve its ability to speak. It cannot risk a strategy that would deny its rights, for the Second Amendment cannot be defended without them.

Thus, the NRA’s first obligation must be to its members and to its most ardent defense of firearms freedom for America’s lawful gun owners.

On June 14, 2010, Democratic leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives pledged that H.R. 5175 would be amended to exempt groups like the NRA, that meet certain criteria, from its onerous restrictions on political speech. As a result, and as long as that remains the case, the NRA will not be involved in final consideration of the House bill.

The NRA cannot defend the Second Amendment from the attacks we face in the local, state, federal, international and judicial arenas without the ability to speak. We will not allow ourselves to be silenced while the national news media, politicians and others are allowed to attack us freely.

The NRA will continue to fight for its right to speak out in defense of the Second Amendment. Any efforts to silence the political speech of NRA members will, as has been the case in the past, be met with strong opposition.

 The NRA thinks of its own needs first and I understand that. They didn’t get to be the 800-pound gorilla of gun rights by being selfless. However, and I say this as a Life Member of the NRA, they are thinking in “Inside the Beltway” terms which may be tactically sound but strategically unwise. Local and regional gun rights groups who are much more agile in responding to state and local threats to gun rights will be hung out to dry.

Instead of playing with the Democrats, the NRA should heed the advice of Niccolo Machiavelli.

A prince, therefore, being compelled knowingly to adopt the beast, ought to choose the fox and the lion; because the lion cannot defend himself against snares and the fox cannot defend himself against wolves. Therefore, it is necessary to be a fox to discover the snares and a lion to terrify the wolves.

The Prince, Chapter XVIII

Those proposing the DISCLOSE Act are nothing but wolves and the NRA should make the vote on HR 5175 a graded vote. They need to be the Lion and quit trying to play the Fox.

UPDATE:  Pelosi has pulled the DISCLOSE Act.

UPDATE #2: Put up for a vote on June 24th and it passes.