Wednesday, March 27, 2013

NRA Board Endorsements And A Non-Endorsement

No Lawyers - Only Guns and Money


NRA Board Endorsements And A Non-Endorsement

Posted: 26 Mar 2013 06:56 PM PDT


If you are either a Life Member or a 5-Year Member of the National Rifle Association, you should have received your ballot for the NRA Board of Directors in the March issue of the American Rifleman/American Hunter. There are 29 people listed on the ballot and the Nominating Committee has selected 28 for endorsement. However, you can only vote for 25 directors. Ballots must be returned and received by April 14th.

Dave Hardy has his endorsements for the board up
here. He, like me, believes in strategic voting. This means only voting for the 5 or 6 that you consider the best. Dave categorizes them as either indispensable or very, very good. In the indispensable category he places Steve Schreiner, Carol Bambery, and Jim Porter. In the very, very good category he adds Sandy Froman, Lance Olson, and Bob Sanders.

Charles Cotton from the Texas Firearms Coalition and a current NRA board member has his endorsements up here. He, like Dave, endorses both Carol Bambery and Jim Porter. He adds Dwight Van Horn as well. He considers the three all very hardworking and people who get down in the trenches to do the heavy lifting.

Lt Col. Robert Brown, editor and publisher of Soldier of Fortune magazine and a NRA board member, has
his endorsements up here. Col. Brown enthusiastically endorses Steve Schreiner for the board. SOF also recommends Tom King, Carol Bambry, Johnny Nugent, Jim Porter and Oliver North. Both Schreiner and King are on the front lines of the battle for the Second Amendment as they are in Colorado and New York respectively.

Jeff and Chris Knox of the Firearms Coalition has traditionally put forth endorsements. Their late father Neal Knox was one of the engineers behind the Cincinnati Revolt of 1977.
This year they have not made any endorsements. They don't think their endorsements would make any appreciable difference and that all the candidates they would endorse are pretty much assured election as are some that they aren't too thrilled about.

Now for the non-endorsement.

Retired Texas Ranger Joaquin Jackson is a current board member and has been nominated by the Nominating Committee. That said, it is time to thank him for his past service and send him off into retirement. I'm sure he is a fine person, an excellent shot, and a colorful character as are all of the old Texas Rangers.

His comments about semiautomatic firearms and magazine size to the Texas Monthly in 2007 (see video clip below) are just the sort of ammunition our enemies would love to exploit. On the gun boards around the country, there are many "fire Jackson" threads. As an example,
see this one from Arfcom. Even MSNBC has noticed this and did a post on it entitled, "Young guns target 'old school' NRA board member."

At this time in our fight for the Second Amendment, we need media savvy directors who are not going to tripped up by reporters with "gotcha" questions. Joaquin Jackson is not one of them. While his heart probably is in the right place, I just don't think he helps the cause and should not merit re-election as a result.



The Fine Hand Of Bloomberg And Bill Drafting

Posted: 26 Mar 2013 01:25 PM PDT


The New York Post reported yesterday that sources within Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration are blaming the Brady Campaign and Bloomberg's people for all the problems with the new NY SAFE Act. That is, of course, beyond the fact that the bill was rammed through both houses of the New York State legislature with very no discussion.

A Cuomo administration source is flatly denying the governor’s claim that his new anti-gun SAFE Act was carefully drafted, saying the governor himself wasn’t even aware of some provisions when it was hastily enacted into law.

“The governor thought the limit on the size of [gun] magazines would only apply to assault-style rifles, not to handguns,’’ said the source.

“That’s why there’s the big problem now with handguns, among other things in the statute.’’

The legal sale of virtually all semiautomatic handguns will soon be impossible because Cuomo’s law limits the size of bullet-holding magazines to seven shots, virtually none of which are manufactured for sale.

“Much of what’s in the law was drafted by people connected to Mayor Bloomberg and the Brady Center, not by the governor’s staff,” the source said. “That’s why there are so many problems with it.’’

As Michael Bane has reported many times, the new gun control bills in Colorado were drafted by Bloomberg and his people and have definitions that are peculiar to New York law and not Colorado law. This especially relates to the definition of transfer of a firearm.

Meanwhile back in February, in Minnesota,
Rep. Alice Hausman, the prime sponsor and ostensible author of HF 241 - the Minnesota "assault weapons" (sic) ban - left the hearings on her own bill and let Heather Martens, a lobbyist from the gun control group Protect Minnesota, explain the bill. Hausman told a reporter later that she really didn't understand her own bill. That bill also had a different definition of "transfer" as well.

As used in this section, "transfer" means a sale, gift, loan, assignment, or other delivery to another, whether or not for consideration, of an assault weapon.

When the BATFE speaks of transfer of a firearm, they mean the transfer of ownership or title. Under normal commercial law, a sales transaction or transfer of title requires an offer, an acceptance of that offer, and the offering of consideration. Consideration is the cash or other remuneration paid for the item. Without those three actions, the transaction or transfer is void and didn't occur. Notice that the Minnesota law explicitly removes the third element from their definition of transfer.

I'm sure a close examination of any of the other gun control bills involving semi-automatic firearms, magazines, and background checks that have been introduced in many state legislatures would show these same similarities. What Michael Bloomberg and his billions can't achieve on a national level might be achieved on the state level if we aren't on guard. As Michael Bane said to Tom Gresham on Sunday during his interview on Gun Talk, they were blindsided in Colorado.

UPDATE:
It seems like Mayor Bloomberg isn't pleased with the reports that Cuomo is blaming the drafting of NY SAFE on him.

Asked about that criticism today, Bloomberg erupted in anger.

"What did we do, put a gun to their head, if you pardon the pun, and force them to write legislation?" he said, during a press conference in Brooklyn about helping the unemployed get jobs. "Is that the allegation? That we were up there with automatic weapons with expanded capacity magazines forcing them to write a bill?"

"That's the kind of journalism that I find troublesome," he continued. "You've got a source that isn't willing to put their name on the bill and the reporting of it wasn't in the context of, is that credible? But they were forced by guns, or a knife at their throat, to take our ideas. If they took our ideas, I'm flattered. I hope they did. And I don't know whether they did or didn't, and I don't know whether they got it accurate or not."

In a latter statement from one of Bloomberg's press spokesman, they said they wanted micro-stamping in NY SAFE but never said anything about magazines. Hmmm.

Jacob at GunpoliticsNY.com
has more on this along with some analysis. Sebastian discusses this buck-passing and the reliance on polling by some politicians in a post this afternoon. I suggest reading both.

 

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