It’s surprisingly easy to imagine a society where gun ownership is looked down upon, if not scorned outright. This already happened with smoking, at least partly as a result of a public education campaign aimed at young people, and it happened when polite society finally came down against people flying the Confederate flag after the Charleston church shootings this year. Sometimes, when legislative action is difficult or downright impossible, a cultural approach works to curtail dangerous behaviors.In short, we can make gun ownership uncool

Source: What If We Made Gun Culture Uncool Like We Did Cigarettes?

Let’s begin with the obvious: The campaign to make gun ownership look not only uncool but retrograde has been going on for the past 30 years. Your side has almost unlimited access to major media outlets and Hollywood production companies that allow you to cast gun owners as dangerous, nasty, racist uncool,despicable….you get the idea.

Yet, after those many years, your side has failed miserably to achieve the goal of exorcise us from the American Culture. Why is that?

Because guns are fun. Gun owners are fun people. We have a ball when we get together to shoot our guns and even more when we bring new people into the culture.

You see? The Gun Control sub-culture is sad and angry. You offer nothing other than loud complaining and name calling and after a while, it gets tiresome and irritates the hell of the regular Joes and Janes. You take somebody to protest guns for the first time and they go home at the end of the day tired and feeling angry. That may work once or twice, but save some emotional masochist, regular folks decide that they had enough soon and seek more pleasurable alternatives.

When we take somebody shooting for the first time, they feel like they are being initiated in a strange and curious world that they only have some nasty reference (from you) about. But after we teaching them the fundamentals of shooting, rules of safety and how to act, they see it is nothing more than developing another skill like driving or rock climbing or wood carving. But the real magic is when they are finally facing the target downrange, they bring the gun up, probably with some trepidation and almost fear, press the trigger and hit that target.

They smile.

They smile because they conquered a new milestone. They smile because they tamed something maybe a couple of hours ago they thought they would never do. They smile because even when they had been bombarded by propaganda about how they would die if they ever touched a gun, they are still alive.

And they smile because it is darn fun.

And it is right there when our side wins. Even if that person never shoots a gun again, whatever crap is that your side has been pushing against us gets identified as lies. And nobody likes or trust a liar.

And if you do not believe me? Check the face of one of the biggest advocates of Gun Control in this country in this picture:
That would not happen to be a smile in the face of Senator Chuck Schummer, would it?

And  That  Is  Why  We  Win.

 I don’t like secret votes, especially when they’re cast by elected officials.In a story published yesterday, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gaultieri addressed a recent vote that the Florida Sheriffs Association conducted of its members to garner their positions on Senate Bill 300, the “Open Carry” legislation.
Most sheriff’s use taxpayer funds to pay their FSA dues, and the organization itself receives public funds. Therefore, every document associated with the secret vote should be open to public inspection.

Source: UPDATED: Let’s see how Florida Sheriffs voted on open carry legislation – The Gun Writer

I am not a lawyer, nor portray one in the TV Tubes, but apparently there seems to be a clear violation of the Sunshine Laws if they cannot produce records.

It is understandable that they would like to remain under the shade of anonymity since most of the Sheriffs are elected and Gun Owners are a ornery and voting bunch.

I am a huge fan of Mike Rowe, the host of Dirty Jobs and Somebody’s Got To Do It.  I love his TED talk, it is 20 minutes of your life well spent.  I am a supporter of the MikeRoweWORKS Foundation and his advocacy for vocational and craftsmanship education.  Recently he did an episode of Somebody’s Got To Do It at Demolition Ranch, which was pretty cool.  But this post is not about that.

I have made reference to the pathetic opinion piece 27 Ways to Be a Modern Man from the NYT before.  Well Mike Rowe did a fisking of it that was, needless to say, beautiful.  There were two, inarguable points he made that stuck out at me:

A Man’s Man prefers his gas tank full, his weapon loaded, his pantry stocked, and his checkbook balanced.

and

A Man’s Man owns at least one firearm. He knows how to use it, clean it, and store it properly. He understands it’s importance, and sees it for what it is – a tool that can protect him and his family.

Mike Rowe gets it.

On the Book of Face, some NYT Modern Man took umbrage with Mr. Rowe’s assertions.

“I recently viewed a poster for the NRA on Facebook with your image with a statement I can only assume you made. “A man’s man owns a firearm.” Why you would say something so boldly sexist, and bigoted? Implying that a man who chooses NOT to own a weapon is what? Less than a man, a WOMAN, a neuter?

I am a U.S. ARMY VETERAN who has trained on various weapons, knows how to maintain, store and use multiple firearms. Now as a civilian, I CHOOSE NOT TO OWN A WEAPON. Can you clarify what you meant in that “man’s man” statement and explain what a man such a myself is, if not a man’s man?

E.K. Billie
Veteran, conscientious citizen, and a man who chooses not to own a firearm.”

I’m going to take a little diversion here.  There is something I need to get off my chest, an opinion, that is … controversial.  Perhaps to the point of heresy.  I am tired of the post 9/11/Iraq/Afghanistan veteran hero worship.  I will be the first to admit that my military service never got past ROTC and some National Guard Training.  I was never deployed.  I am not a veteran.  As a civilian, however, I was a part time instructor in math for airmen at Ellsworth.  I also did research for DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and worked with soldiers and airmen on these projects.

There are many people who enlisted because of a sense of duty or patriotism.  There are also a lot of people who enlisted because they were stuck in Podunk, USA or didn’t/couldn’t get into college and their lives were going no where and thought that a 4 year term of service and some job training would be the way to do something other than flip burgers for the rest of their life.  They saw the military as just another job, be it counting bombs in the arsenal or maintaining aircraft flight records or doing whatever.  Their 9 to 5 was done in a blouse that said ARMY or USAF instead of one with the Golden Arches on it.  These people may technically be veterans, but they are not heroes, and I really don’t give their opinions much value, especially when it is used as an appeal to authority to take away my gun rights.

I don’t know anything about Mr. E.K. Billie’s service record.  He could have been a bad ass door kicker.  But since he doesn’t mention that, there is an equally likely chance that “I am a U.S. ARMY VETERAN who has trained on various weapons, knows how to maintain, store and use multiple firearms” means that he spend 4 years at a base NOT in an active combat zone signing weapons in and out of the arsenal.  Either way, the implication that Mr. E.K. Billie asserts is that he is a manly man, He-man, alpha wolf, weapons expert who chooses to be disarmed as a civilian.  Then he busts out with the “Why you would say something so boldly sexist, and bigoted?” which really sounds a lot more like some SJW type whining than manly man, alpha wolf type behavior.  

Mike Rowe’s response to Mr. E.K. Billie was that that his (Rowe’s) comment was tongue in cheek.  No.  It wasn’t.  It was spot on.  Mr. E.K. Billie is the who doesn’t get it.  He supposedly had the intestinal fortitude to, presumably, stand armed at a wall to defend his nation, but can’t muster up the same resolve at home with his family.  That is not what a man’s man does.  A man’s man protects his own.

And no, Mr. E.K. Billie, not owning a gun doesn’t make you a woman.  There a are plenty. of. women who get it more than you do.  But if you wan’t a label to describe your position, I’ll give you one: emotional eunuch.

This time courtesy of the Violence Policy Center who brings you the “Teddy Bears are more regulated than guns” zombie.

This is so brutally stupid, it gives me a headache. Imagine if teddy Bear manufacturing and sales were treated the same way guns are treated, you would not be able to sell one. Just having to put a serial number in each teddy bear, keep such strict bookkeeping that missing a box of those suckers would end up with a raid in your factory. Imagine toy stores having to keep equally tight bookkeeping on their stock of teddy bears and having to perform a background check on any adult that wants to buy one. Hell, imagine how pissed grandma would be if she is told she needs to fill a federal form in order to buy the stuffed ursus and go through the background check..and that conviction for pot possession back in the 60s comes back to bite her in the granny pants and she gets denied plus she just committed a felony: Prohibited Person attempting to buy a Teddy Bear as per US Code 18.

Is their cupboard so bare they are recycling crap that did not work before but they are willing to give it a try?

I can almost hear Josh Sugarmann saying “throw that teddy bear crap against the wall again. Let’s see if it sticks this time.”

Yes indeed! The Kellermann 1993 study has been dug out once again, dusted and set out to amble into the interwebs to scare folks. If you ever heard the slogan “A gun in the house is 43/24/19/etc times more likely to kill the owner than a criminal” you are in the presence of the Kellerman Study. By their own admission, they studied three of the worst counties for crime in the US for a period of six months to a year and with lousy statistical analysis. If you feel like reading, you can dig in Serious Flaws in Kellerman, et al (1993) NEJM and Statiscal Misgivings and Lies  or you can google it and find more.

The same people who praised Kellermans short time and shortsighted study, raised holy hell when John Lott’s More Guns, Less Crime came out. Lott’s work examined 10 years (and he has been updating constantly) but across several counties in several states and not cherry-picked because they would give him a certain favorable data.

Moms objective is clear and it is the same old crap since congress put a stop to the use of the CDC for political crap related to guns: To present the “reasonable” idea that “gun violence is an epidemic and needs to be medically treated urgently. It does not matter that there were other CDC studies done (Including one paid by the administration and published in 2013) after Kellerman’s that signed off with the same sentence:

In summary, the Task Force found insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws reviewed for preventing violence.

So, if study after study, including the one paid by the White House come back and say the same thing, why do they beat on this old horse? Two answers: To create the idea that we are hiding something (conspiracy theories require no thought process) and your basic tantrum demanding a recount as in “we want another and another and another until the numbers are in our favor and then the science is settled.”

If you want to read a study, go check the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Firearm Violence, 1993-2011.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199310073291506#t=article

The FSA opposes any loosening of gun laws, no matter what it is.  Normally on the grounds that it will cause them to actually work for a fucking living.

Source: The Abode of McThag: Twas A Good Fight

The Florida’s Sheriffs Association alleged support for the Second Amendment lasted as long as Lot’s wife after the first rains graced what was once Sodom.