These Folks Sure Don’t Represent Me

Don’t you absolutely hate it when someone chooses to speak on your behalf and their message is…well, to state it nicely…a bunch of crap.   Seriously, when this person or group spouts off claiming they have your best interests in mind only to later learn they have an underlying (and selfish) reason to be your mouthpiece that is not at all in your best interests.   It makes you upset.

Well, imagine my confusion and surprise yesterday when I read in my local newspaper that the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul (along with many other metro area suburbs) have joined a coalition of mayors from other major cities around the country to form a coalition of mayors against illegal guns.   Sounds like something a bunch of big city, liberal mayors might do.   But that’s not my concern.   Nope.   It was the introduction of a group called the American Hunters and Shooters Association.   Yup, that’s right.   A so-called group of just “ordinary hunters and gun owners” who supposedly agree with “common-sense” gun legislation.   Huh?   You’ve got to be kidding me.   This group touts themselves as an up-start 18–month old organization positioned as an “alternative” to the National Rifle Association.

Something smells fishy here.   The news report was on the radio as well as in the newspaper and the media made things sound like finally a common ground had been reached between the safety interests of big city mayors (trying to curb gun violence) as well as safeguarding the sporting interests of hunters and shooters.

Let me tell you something.   It’s all a ruse…nothing at all what it seems to be.   The American Hunters and Shooters Association is the enemy, in my opinion.   Let me emphasize that again.   By name the American Hunters and Shooters Association might seem like a worthwhile group with a legitimate purpose…but I’m not buying it.   And I don’t think you should buy it either.   Check them out.

Fellow blogger and gun rights advocate John Lott first exposed the group nearly two years ago in a couple of posts that can be read here and here.   What Lott discovered at that time was a poorly concealed attempt to hide the registration details of the organization.   In fact, he notes the web address was originally owned by Robert Ricker.   A quick Google search of Ricker discovers he was a former employee of the NRA who has apparently turned sides since their relationship dissolved.   Not surprisingly, the entire web site and the list of leadership reads like a Who’s Who of gun control advocates…but who takes the time to discover those trivial bits of information?

What you need to take away from this blog post is the American Hunters and Shooters Association is a big bad wolf wearing lambs clothing.   I boldfaced it because understanding this fact is critical.   The gun control faction is getting very sneaky by attempting to look like one of us.   And folks, they’re not just doing it in my part of the country…they’re doing it all over and carrying out their methods in a very deceitful manner by purporting to be the voice of reason for the common sportsman who has come to their senses realizing the NRA has long been “selling us out.”

Hogwash!   This tactic should anger you as a sportsman as much as it does me.   Yet, I sense that too many fellow sportsmen are complacent and simply allow these PR stunts to fly under the radar while not getting properly challenged.   Perhaps what bothers me most is when the gun control message can’t be pushed forward on it’s own merits and yet it needs to have an underhanded mechanism such as this to bolster the public’s misconception of the truth.   Shame on any politician or public official who uses their name associated with such utter deception to accomplish their own self-interests.

Today, I’m here to tell you that the American Hunters and Shooters Association in no way, shape or form represents me as an ordinary American Sportsman, despite what their organizational name might imply.   Furthermore, I would urge everyone to take a closer look and consider exposing this group for the facade it really is by proudly claiming to be one of us sportsmen.

2007 Jim Braaten. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction without Prior Permission

In The Shadows Of Tragedy

Today, and in the days following the massacre at Virginia Tech, we pause to reflect on the incident while keeping the victims, their families and all those personally affected in our prayers.   No doubt this tragedy will evolve from today’s horror and disgust to eventually a call for action to satiate the need to do “something” to avert future such attacks.

As time goes on it will be quite interesting to see what eventually comes out of this senseless act.   Some believe this incident might become the impetus for a national discussion on guns—whether they should be banned or perhaps whether they should finally be allowed in schools, if in trained hands, to provide a mechanism for security that does not now exist in “gun free zones.”

Take a read of these two nicely written viewpoints in the shadows of the slaughter and what could be the aftermath.   Indeed, this tragedy will not be going away anytime soon, in fact, it might even become a pivotal point as we ramp up to the 2008 election season.

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Here Come The Gun Banners
By Tom Gresham

April 16, 2007, just might be a turning point in the battle to restore gun rights to Americans. The tragedy at Virginia Tech today, with more than 30 people being killed in a premeditated murder spree, will be the fulcrum upon which the anti-gun rights forces leverage their efforts to restrict (destroy, if possible) your right to not only own guns, but to protect yourself and your family.

Quite simply, this is the mass shooting the anti-self defense forces have been waiting for, as we will see over the coming days and weeks. The papers are already drawn up; the proposed restrictions were penned long ago; they have merely been waiting for this moment.

Lost in the coming cacophony will be the utter failure of the “perfect” gun law — a total gun ban. You see, on that university campus, no one is allowed to have a gun for self -protection in dorms or classrooms. It is the latest in a long string of murderous failures of “gun free” zones, or as they are better called, “victim-rich environments.”

According to the school’s “Campus and Workplace Violence Prevention Policy”:

“The university’s employees, students, and volunteers, or any visitor or other third party attending a sporting, entertainment, or educational event, or visiting an academic or administrative office building or residence hall, are further prohibited from carrying, maintaining, or storing a firearm or weapon on any university facility, even if the owner has a valid permit, when it is not required by the individual’s job, or in accordance with the relevant University Student Life Policies.

Any such individual who is reported or discovered to possess a firearm or weapon on university property will be asked to remove it immediately. Failure to comply may result in a student judicial referral and/or arrest, or an employee disciplinary action and/or arrest.”

(Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Policy 5616, Campus and Workplace Violence Prevention Policy, http://www.policies.vt.edu/5616.pdf)

A similar situation to the one that happened at Virginia Tech occurred on January 16th, 2002 at Appalachian Law School in Grundy, Virginia. A disgruntled former student began a similar shooting spree. The difference in this case was that the attack was stopped by three individuals, two of whom were legally armed with handguns. Unfortunately, the attack was not stopped until three people had been killed and three more wounded. Why did it take so long to stop the attack? The good guys had to retrieve their guns from their parked cars before they could confront the gunman. ALS was a gun-free zone, you know.

Barely more than a year ago House Bill 1572 couldn’t even make it out of committee in the Virginia General Assembly. The bill would have made it legal for students and staff at Virginia universities to have guns for their own protection. Today’s shooter did not wait for such a law, and took advantage of the government-mandated victim-state.

When House Bill 1572 was defeated, state newspapers reported: “Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. ‘I’m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly’s actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.'”

Once again, the desire to “feel safe” prompts decisions which actually make people less safe.

What does it mean to America’s gun owners? It certainly sounds the battle cry for those who enacted, then lost, the ability to ban full-capacity magazines for defensive firearms. Expect a quick call for limiting magazine capacity–and thus, the ability to fully protect yourself and your family. There may well be calls for the banning of all autoloading (semi-automatic) firearms, even though those have been in use for more than 100 years.

Fortunately, the political landscape is much different than it was when the Brady Bill and the Clinton Gun Ban were passed in the early 1990s. Those acts helped pull together a fragmented firearms industry which, until then, had kept out of politics, leaving that to the NRA. The firearms industry now understands the threat, as do individual gun owners who use guns for recreation, but especially for self-protection. Passage of the so-called “assault weapon” ban resulted in the Republican Party taking control of Congress, according to President Bill Clinton. The gun issue is largely credited with keeping a Republican in the White House since then. Elected officials of all stripes know that any proposal to infringe on gun rights is a third rail, capable of cutting short almost any political career.

Certainly, some closet gun banners will be emboldened by this tragedy and will come forward, counting on a groundswell of public outrage to carry the day for repressive gun control laws, much as it did in England and Australia after those countries experienced similar shootings. The disturbing fact that the violent crime rate skyrocketed in both countries following the confiscation of guns from honest people will not quell the zeal of those who dream of a country where the criminals are free to prey on the defenseless.

They long for the day when they can bring the failed experiment of “gun free” zones to every town, neighborhood, and home in America.

Until Monday, April 16, it was thought that gun control would be an issue politicians would try to duck over the next 18 months. That may have changed. What has not changed, though, is the awareness of the American public that they need firearms for personal protection. The vivid images of helpless people during Hurricane Katrina being victimized by thugs, with no police to help, crystallized the understanding that each of us is responsible for our own safety,. Today, we all know we can certainly take advantage of help from official sources, but we also are clear that we should never give up our ability to help ourselves.

Today’s shootings are terrible. Our hearts go out to the victims and their families. We don’t want to inject politics into this, but to ignore this is to pretend the sun doesn’t rise each day. The assault on our rights surely will come.

Whether we gun owners get swept away by a tsunami of gun restrictions, or swim to the top with logic and organized persuasion depends, I think, on the intensity and the quality of our reaction. One thing is for sure. This is the fight that will determine the future of gun rights, the firearms industry, our ability to protect our families, and the strength of our Constitutional protections.

Tragedy Makes Our Disconnection From Reality Obvious
By Jim Shepherd

What happened yesterday at Virginia Tech was a tragedy of almost incomprehensible proportion. There is absolutely no way to rationalize the acts of a single individual determined to inflict as much harm as possible on as many people as possible, especially if that individual is not concerned about losing their own life in the process.

The attack on unsuspecting students is the worst carnage ever visited on American student. It is also another glaring demonstration of the fact that many “average Americans” – and most media members, have no concept of operating in real-time. Only hours after the murders, Tech students were popping up across the cable networks, expressing their displeasure at having not been notified sooner. Of course, they’re located on a campus comprised of around 25,000 students and several hundred buildings, but the campus police and school officials are supposed to be able to make everyone instantly aware of everything – simultaneously.

Everyone seems to forget a college campus this size is the equivalent of a self-contained small city. A city with only 50 police officers.

Not that it will make any difference.

People are looking for someone to blame for all this, a scapegoat. Amazingly, the thought of blaming the shooter doesn’t seem to enter into the equation. We’ll hear it’s the fault of the administration, the police and, eventually, the firearms, but we’ll hear precious little credit for this heinous act laid at the foot of the disturbed person who pulled the trigger and reloaded those evil firearms.

That, unfortunately, seems to be the modus operandi today.

Yesterday afternoon, as Virginia Tech’s police chief Wendell Flenchum fielded rapid-fire questions from reporters, it became apparent they weren’t hunting for answers, they were hunting for a villain.

In the course of that conference, one reporter asked Flenchum “isn’t this an unusual situation for a college police department to handle?” Flenchum, who is obviously more tactful than most, replied simply: “This is an unusual situation for any police department to handle.”

As the story continues to unfold, it becomes painfully obvious this country has lost touch with reality – unless it’s reality TV.

Life does not come in 22-minute bundles, neatly wrapped and ready-to-go.

In press conferences today, reporters who didn’t get the answers they wanted simply tried to frame the question differently. They seemed befuddled at the fact that anyone would give simple, declarative answers to what were, in fact, ignorant questions.

Coming less than 24 hours after the close of the 136th Annual National Rifle Association meetings in St. Louis, this tragedy may suddenly become the focal point of the firearms question as we head into 2008.

There’s a lot at stake in both sides of the firearms discussion.

If Second Amendment supporters wage a spirited fight – and keep firearms one of those voting issues that might not get you elected, but could certainly get you defeated, we have an opportunity to demonstrate our resolve to politicians.

Should the anti-firearms leaders of Congress not win – and win convincingly – their more liberal supporters will be screaming for the heads of the Democratic leadership.

We are all stunned and saddened at yesterday’s tragedy. Now, we must move through the shock and begin preparing for the inevitable.

2007 Jim Braaten. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction without Prior Permission

Sportsman’s Blog Podcast Episode #4-2007

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PeteFischerJoin me as I interview Pete Fischer of Fischer’s Kennels on the timely topic of picking out a new hunting dog and doing it the correct way.   Pete offers some great advice you’ll want to consider no matter what breed of hunting companion you might be in the market to purchase.

There’s a lot of careful decisions to make before you make that all-important commitment to bring a new dog home.   Are you ready to spend the time necessary to properly care for and train the dog?   How can you be sure you’re getting a healthy dog from a reputable breeder?   What are some playtime activities you absolutely do not want to do with that new retriever or risk the possibility of creating a more difficult dog to train.

We cover the topic quite thoroughly and provide a good primer for those considering a new puppy purchase this spring.

2007 Jim Braaten. All Rights Reserved. No Reproduction without Prior Permission